Design of a novel gas turbine generator for South African international airports

South Africa (SA) is highly dependent on the state utility ESKOM for electric power supply. This includes big companies and tourism sectors in SA. For the very first time in history, SA has had the OR Tambo international airport (one of the busy airports in SA) switch off to darkness. This was due to the boiler failures at the power stations owned by the state utility ESKOM. These types of boilers are fired with the use of coal and they produce a reasonable amount of Carbon dioxide (CO2) and soot to the atmosphere. This paper details the design of a gas turbine that can drive an electric generator to produce electricity for the OR Tambo international airport in Johannesburg, the King Shaka international airport in Durban and the Cape Town international airport. Specifications of the design were made and are as follows: The gas engine aims to have a mass of 1 000kg or less, the work produced is specified to be more than 500 kW with an efficiency of 35 % or more. The mass of the engine after preliminary analysis is determined to be 1 180.965 kg (i.e. 18 % more than the specified mass), the work that can be produced by the engine is calculated to be 811.59 kW with an efficiency of 40.34 %. The material cost is analyzed to be R 107 787.77 or $ 7000. Safety considerations, maintenance and repair of the designed gas turbine are also documented in this paper. The social, economic, heath, and environment impacts of the design are clearly stated. The gas turbine generator aims to use natural gas as fuel. Natural gas power generation has almost no emission of CO2 and soot. The gas turbine design has the significant potential to decrease the expenditure on ESKOM electricity demand.