Turbine Hall

The Exciter is the nearest 'orange colored" component. The exciter together with the rotating generator causes the generation of electricity that then is routed through "bus bars" in air cooled piping or "bus duct" to the Main Generator Transformer which is generally located just outside the plant. Some electrical power is directed back to the plant for use by plant pumps, motors, fans, etc (also called "house loads", which may be 5 % of a plant's output).

Photo by J.A. Gonyeau

The cylindrical Moisture Separator can be seen on the left hand side with the piping above going to the Low Pressure Turbines. The mositure separators take the steam that exhausts from the High Pressure Turbine at about 125 pound per square inch pressure and remove the moisture in the steam so that it can be sent to the low pressure turbines. Wtare removal is important since it can cause very severe erosion of the large blades.

The water used to produce the steam must be very pure, since even trace amounts of sand or silica can cause deposits on the blading which can damage the blading. Millions of pounds per hour of steam passes through the turbines.