@bscholl: If you’re making a new gas turbine, how big should it be? Decades ago, the computing industry figured out that large ar…

If you’re making a new gas turbine, how big should it be? Decades ago, the computing industry figured out that large arrays of blade servers were both cheaper and more reliable than a small number of expensive mainframes. Yet the energy world is still largely powered by gigantic “frame” turbines that are hard to make and difficult to install. I think the future of energy—particularly for off-grid “behind the meter” generation —is small modular production. But how small should you go? If you go too small there is a big loss in efficiency (due to things like higher relative blade tip losses). But there’s a sweet spot in the 40-50MW range where the turbine has most of the efficiency of a gigantic unit yet is also much more manufacturable and deployable. This is the sweet spot is in total cost per unit energy, inclusive of capital expenditure. This is why Superpower sits at the ever magical 42MW.