Data centre power| Turbine technology
structures, they can lend themselves more easily to environmental permitting and operations licensing. For all their advantages, though, extreme care is required to ensure that aeroderivative turbines can retain their high efficiency and reliability over the long term and when operating in harsh, challenging environments.
Reliability is paramount When operating, even smaller turbines ingest huge volumes of air as part of their combustion process. This unfiltered ambient air will be laden with contaminants that can critically impact turbine performance.
Dust, grit, water, hydrocarbons, salt, as well as insects and pollen, can all potentially find their way into the sophisticated, advanced turbine internals where they will cause failures. Particulates like dust and grit can cause erosion of the compressor section, impacting the aerofoil and GT efficiency. Even where such significant impacts are minimised through regular online water washing, contamination can still adhere to the compressor blades, changing their geometry and again affecting operational efficiency. Airborne salt found at coastal sites will cause corrosion and salt can make its way deep into the engine to the hot gas path where corrosive chemical reactions are accelerated. With solid to liquid phase changes and when combined with dust, salt compounds will form hard-to-shift corrosive, mud-like materials.
In some locations, snow and ice can also impede airflow and airborne pollutants like hydrocarbons commonly present their own set of filtration issues. There is a world of ambient air challenges, challenges which will vary with location and season. Removing them typically introduces pressure losses, which in themselves will cause a drop in operational efficiency, directly translated into more kg of CO2
per MWh produced and lower output.
While some of these contamination issues can be alleviated by regular offline washing, this
Heat shield face
Parker-designed GT air intake and silencing system – distributed power application
requires a shutdown of the machine and thus a temporary loss of utility.
Often, these turbine units are not running at full capacity for 8000+ hours a year, suggesting that there are likely opportunities for off-line washes that don’t impact immediate operational requirements.
However, more significant are the implications of contaminants entering the turbine and the consequent potential reliability concerns. Digital services are such a central element in many people’s daily lives that the implications of a data centre going offline are profound, even life threatening. Given the primacy of turbine reliability – and with it, assured data centre availability – effective air intake filtration becomes a critical factor. Addressing the full range of potential contaminants under all kinds of ambient
LPC stage2 LE
HPC1-7 stage1 LE
HPC1-7 stage7 LE
environmental conditions from hot dusty arid regions to frigid urban sites, air filtration is extremely challenging and relies on extensive research, development and testing. Parker Hannifin, for example, invests substantial funds in its comprehensive testing programmes, including mobile test rigs that can be deployed in appropriate locations. Backed by extensive testing and quality control, the performance of durable hydrophobic and oleophobic filtration media can be assured under all conditions. However, intake filtration is much more than the filter media alone. The entire system between the air intake and the turbine plenum has a role to play in maintaining optimum performance and reliability. The intake system typically includes inertial separation vanes to prevent water ingress, and acoustic silencing – particularly important for data centres located in urban environments – and may include air inlet heating and cooling too. The whole system within a housing must fit perfectly to prevent bypass that might allow unfiltered air into the turbine. All of these elements require an intimate understanding of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, mechanical design and acoustics in addition to a core expertise in air filtration. How all these vital air intake components interact affects flow dynamics and system pressure loss and impacts not only air cleanliness but airflow distortion at the gas turbine bellmouth. To work effectively the system must be designed as a single compact unit and fitted with filter elements designed for the task and specified for the specific environmental conditions encountered.
24 khr borescope inspection downstream of a Parker-designed GT air intake system
For data centres, reliability is the paramount consideration. When choosing power turbines to meet that goal, air intake filtration is fundamental. Data giants like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google and X understand the real challenge is not access to power but securing dependable power. That’s the real risk of poor filtration choices.
www.modernpowersystems.com | July/August 2025 | 13
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