The transition of the European energy grid to renewable energy sources is increasing the demand for back-up capacity with high flexibility. Current fossil fuel plants are continuously being forced into part load operation, where they are limited by pollution regulations that dictate their minimum environmental load, MEL. The power plants need to shut down when they no longer can comply to pollution regulations, but shutting down means that they can't act as quick back-up for the energy grid. Thus the EU project Turbo-Reflex aims to retrofit existing power plants in order to improve MEL by extending it to lower loads and, by doing so, meeting some of the back-up capacity that is needed.

One method of improving MEL in a gas turbine power plants is reducing the mass flow from the compressor to the combustor. This study aims to investigate the stability and performance changes in a compressor as a function of intermediate mass extraction through bleeding lines. The study was made using a 2D throughflow model of a 15 stage axial compressor. Three different bleeding lines, positioned along the length of the compressor, were used for flow reduction. A design of experiments was made to get a structured data collection, combining different configurations of bleeding levels through the three lines, with up to 20% flow reduction. The influence of lowering the ambient temperature was also studied.

Results detail the aerodynamic influence of intermediate mass extraction. The loading at the last stage increases with flow reduction, as evaluated by the diffusion factor, and stator 15 becomes the highest aerodynamically loaded position in the compressor. The increased loading is significantly dependent on the bleeding configuration, where upstream extraction is advantageous. The compressor power requirement has the same behavior, where extracting upstream has a 10% advantage. However, bleeding reduces efficiency, and in this regard it is better to use a bleed line further downstream. This combines into a trade off between these three parameters that needs to be made by the operator. Lowering the ambient temperature changes the interplay between these parameters.

These research's results are part of the TURBO-REFLEX project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 764545.