Evaluation and Application of Data Sources for Assessing Operating Costs for Mechanical Drive Gas Turbines in Pipeline Service

This paper evaluates and demonstrates how the public domain data provided by individual interstate pipeline companies to FERC, when combined with individual company equipment lists, can be used to regress industry information on cost of operations and maintenance, fuel gas used, and cost of fuel and power. The paper describes the methods of analysis and identifies their limitations. The paper presents results of such regression analysis as average and variance of cost and fuel usage for industrial gas turbines and aeroderivative gas turbines. It provides further comparisons between gas turbine prime movers, reciprocating engine prime movers, and electric motor drives, and presents annual costs per installed horsepower as a function of turbine size. The paper is based on work performed for PRC International and the Gas Research Institute. [S0742-4795(00)01003-6]