Cost and availability are deciding factors for new technology

Higher gas turbine efficiencies, more gasification plants and an ever-increasing focus on the environment worldwide are among the issues that will shape the power generation industry in the next few years and into the next century. For fossil energy systems, gas turbines have emerged as the technology of choice because of their high efficiencies, Already, operating efficiencies of 55% and above in combined-cycle, advanced gas turbines will be achieving 60% thermal efficiency by the end of this decade. With the next generation of gas turbines, there could be combined-cycle efficiencies a few points higher by the year 2010.