Enter Axford. A highlight of every Western Turbine meeting is Houston-based Consultant Mark Axford’s “Worldwide Gas Turbine Business Update,” including his predictions of future orders. Axford’s connection with gas turbines spans more than four decades and his affiliation with WTUI goes back to well before the organization’s incorporation.

As the sun set on the 1970s, Axford was selling Allison gas turbine/generator sets and compressor sets for Stewart & Stevenson, which also was a GE-authorized “packager” of nominal 20-MW LM2500-powered gensets. The company sold its first LM2500 packages in 1981 for an offshore platform and won its first US order in November 1982.

The latter package was installed in 1983 at the Hawaiian Independent Refinery Inc, where WTUI’s Kawamoto, then in his 20s, had general responsibility for the multi-fuel unit. After GE bought S&S’s turbine business in early 1998, Axford launched the consulting firm that bears his name. He likely is the most recognizable non-user at Western Turbine meetings.

The focus of Axford’s presentations has shifted since the 25^th anniversary meeting from order stats and projections to industry changes and their potential impacts on electric supply business and gas turbine O&M. Time-challenged attendees have found this format particularly valuable for keeping them current on subjects outside their normal purview. At the last two meetings, Axford provided valuable perspective on the following industry headlines, among others:

• Big layoffs in the power-generation ranks of both Siemens and GE.
• Emergence of battery storage.
• US shift to larger combined cycles and away from medium-size gensets.
• Focus of OEMs on high efficiency.
• Impact of oil prices on gas-turbine operations.
• Success of medium-speed recip-engine gensets in the 5-MW-and-above market.
• Impact on solar and wind subsidies—specifically investment tax and production tax credits—on gas-turbine sales.
• LNG exports and their positive impact on the gas-turbine market.
• Electric vehicles and their potential disruptive impacts on the automotive, oil, and electricity markets.
• Possible GE restructuring impacts on gas-turbine operations.
• Mitsubishi Hitachi’s challenge to GE in the business of very large gas turbines.
• Integration of gas turbines and batteries.
• Pockets of opportunity for gas turbines in the US and worldwide.

Future business. The impacts of must-take renewables, wholesale closing of coal-fired stations, evolving nature of grid operations, etc, have made it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to predict with a high degree of confidence orders for new gas turbines. Before the 25^th anniversary meeting you could pretty much “bet the farm” on Axford’s predictions of new business.

Since then it has been challenging. Examples: He predicted 2016 orders for gas turbines larger than 10 MW would be down 10% (capacity basis) both in the US and worldwide compared to 2015. The actuals: US down 30%; worldwide down 14%. For 2017, Axford thought US orders would be up by 10% and worldwide down 10%. The actuals: US orders off 36%, worldwide down 28%. For 2018, he figured both the US and the world would be down by 10%. US orders were off 27%, the world off 13%.

Thus, gas-turbine orders have now dropped year over year in both the US and worldwide for three consecutive years. At last year’s Western Turbine meeting Axford predicted 2019 orders would be down by 10% in both the US and worldwide. He will announce the actual figures during the general session shortly after taking the podium at about 10:45 Monday.

Axford’s current format of analyzing industry events doesn’t mean you don’t get the stats craved by some attendees, it just means the baton for this information has been passed to his colleague Tony Brough, PE, president of Dora Partners & Company LLC, who maintains a database of the nearly 38,000 gas turbines rated 1 MW and above installed worldwide (as of Jan 1, 2018). Brough held responsible positions at GE Aeros and Rolls Royce for more than 20 years before starting Dora Partners in 2007. His insights, like Axford’s, are illuminating.

At 2:30 Monday afternoon, after lunch and free time in the exhibit hall, the technical program begins in earnest with three-hour sessions dedicated to the LM6000, LM5000, LM2500, and LMS100 engines conducted in parallel. Discussion leaders for these sessions, respectively, are Dave Fink of Southwest Generation, Perry Leslie of Yuba City Cogeneration, Garry Grimwade of Riverside Public Utilities, and Steve Worthington of Arizona Public Service.

The meeting’s premier social event, Monday Night Reception, follows at 6:30, with three hours set aside for dinner, entertainment, and time for casual networking.

Tuesday, March 31

The Breakout Sessions for each engine continue after breakfast the following morning at 8:00. For the first 90 minutes, only users are allowed into the meeting rooms. Representatives of GE and the ASPs can participate in the sessions after the break, from 10:00 to noon.

Following lunch and presentation of WTUI’s recognition awards, plus the Turbine Inlet Cooling Assn’s annual excellence awards for implementing inlet cooling solutions, you have time for a last spin around the exhibit hall, which closes at 2:30. Nine special hour-long technical presentations close out the afternoon with three topics presented in parallel at 2:30, 3:30, and 4:30. Details are in the Technical Program sidebar.

Wednesday, April 1

Breakout Sessions for each engine continue, as they did Tuesday, at 8:00 after breakfast. The sessions run until the break at 10:30. GE’s traditional hour-long new products update follows at 10:45. Fifteen minutes are allowed for final comments from the WTUI leadership. The meeting ends promptly at noon.