Rolls-Royce is introducing its new B36:45 medium-speed gas engines; the units feature up to 50% efficiency and low fuel consumption and emissions levels.

Since Rolls-Royce delivered its first medium-speed gas engine in 1991, the Bergen engines have logged millions of operating hours in a broad range of applications in both land and marine environments. The current portfolio consists of the small and flexible C26:33 (1,4-2,4 MW), the well proven B35:40 (3,9-9,6 MW), and the new and modern B36:45 (3,5-12 MW) gas engines.

Our new and modern B36:45 gas engines build on the success of the B35:40-series and offers a variety of new benefits to our customers. Power output has been increased with 20% up to roughly 12 MW, it has low life cycle costs, and offers up to 50% efficiency. Hence, the engines also have exceptionally low fuel consumption and emission levels. We believe the new series is truly engineered for the future, and it’s a pleasure that we’re now introducing it to the American market.

—Markku Aspholm, Director Americas, in Bergen Engines AS

All the Rolls-Royce medium speed engines come in numerous configurations and are applicable for different operational modes. This includes baseload, grid balancing and peaking—suited to support variable renewable energy sources in hybrid systems. Multiple units arranged in modular power plants in the range 20MW-1GW provide the required flexibility while enabling economical operation at any power plant output level.

Designed to run with air excess ratio around 2.0 and above, the engines have excellent capability to meet quick and frequent load changes, which is essential for island-mode operation, such as isolated operation of microgrids. Start times of 3 minutes from start command to rated power output have been committed to, using the B35:40V20AG2 genset.

By utilizing the engine’s waste heat, in combined cycle or CHP, total efficiency can reach over 95%. This is currently used extensively in district heating applications or trigeneration applications, where heat is used locally, and the electrical power is either consumed locally in a micro grid or exported to the national grid.

A medium-speed power plant can be built anywhere and is tailored to meet the specific requirements in every case due to its versatile building blocks. Rolls-Royce offers modular and flexible power plant arrangements that have been developed over many years based on experience from a vast range of operating conditions from very low to very high ambient temperatures (-50C to +50C), and from very dry to tropical conditions.