Three combined-cycle natural gas turbine plants have achieved commercial operation at TVA’s (Tennessee Valley Authority) Paradise Combined Cyle Plant near Drakesboro, Kentucky. Each plant is equipped with a GE 7FA.05 gas turbine/generator and a Vogt heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The HRSGs are equipped with natural-gas supplemental duct firing and the steam generated from the HRSGs provides steam to a Toshiba steam turbine/generator.

These plants were designed to allow simple cycle operation with a summer capacity of 600+ MW, or combined cycle operation with a baseload capacity of 1,025 MW and additional supplemental duct-firing operation of 1,100 MW. It can operate in 1×1, 2×1, or 3×1 mode or operate in simple cycle mode as needed.

The Paradise Combined Cycle Plant is a highly flexible and dynamic facility providing responsive, clean, and reliable power to TVA’s customer.  
Benny Fooshee, senior project manager with TVA, said, “These units will start from a cold start to full load in 10 minutes and 27 seconds, putting approximately 750 MW on the grid.”

These three new combustion turbines (CTs) join three other CTs that began operating in July at TVA’s Colbert site in northern Alabama. TVA said that together the additions bring almost 1,500 MW to the grid that didn’t exist last winter. “It couldn’t happen at a better time,” Paradise Plant Manager Jim Phelps said in another audio interview. “We’ve had a mild season so far, but we do know we’ve got cold weather ahead, and it’s right on time.”

This is just part of TVA’s plan to add more than 3,800 MW of generation to their grid by 2028. “Many of TVA’s new CTs are replacing older, less efficient units,” TVA General Manager of Major Projects Jamie Cook said in a statement. “Natural gas units are cleaner than coal-fired generation. We can also operate them when other sources of generation, like solar, aren’t available. They supplement those sources with reliable power when we need it most.