NEWTOWN, Conn. - The MT30 has made a successful entry into the marine propulsion market. Its adoption by the Royal and U.S. navies provides the MT30 with a prestigious order book that will support future sales efforts. Yet, despite its successful entry into the market, the MT30 is still restricted to a relatively narrow market. U.S. sales are for two classes of warship - one that is already at the end of its brief production run, and another whose production has been seriously reduced. The Royal Navy's orders are very similar: one order is for a nearly completed class of aircraft carriers, and the other is for a class of surface combatants that has been reduced significantly from its original number.
At this point, the fairest description of the MT30 is that it has the potential to be a major market competitor and offers a potential challenge to the LM2500's domination of the marine propulsion market. The challenge facing Rolls-Royce is to turn that potential into reality. The company has taken some steps in this direction, but they have not been enough to represent the needed breakout for the system. The MT30 is, at best, maintaining its presence but is not building upon that position.
The adoption of the MT30 by South Korea for its Incheon-class light frigates suggests the future pattern of its deployment. In the Incheon class, a single MT30 replaces the two LM2500s installed in the first six ships of this class. The MT30 is an expensive turbine, which costs almost twice as much as a baseline LM2500. However, the MT30 delivers significantly more power than the LM2500 and is designed to minimize maintenance costs. These considerations bring the two gas turbines to a near cost equivalence. However, the latest versions of the LM2500 match the MT30 for power, and if more is needed, the LM6000 is waiting in the wings. In fact, given the advantage claimed by Rolls-Royce for the MT30 in the generated power sector, it is surprising that GE has not promoted its LM6000 for naval applications to a much greater extent.
The possibility of equipping the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer program with the MT30 now seems more remote. The U.S. Navy has made it clear that it will shift away from mechanical gearing in these ships to an integrated fully electric propulsion (IFEP) arrangement. This will require a major redesign of the vessel's machinery spaces, which will raise the possibility of re-engining the ships. The three options - retaining the existing quartet of LM2500s, replacing the LM2500s with two LM6000s, or installing two MT30s - offer little difference in power capacity and total cost considerations. However, since the DDG-51 has a cramped design in which the continuous improvements have absorbed all the available weight and volume margins, replacing the four LM2500s with two more-powerful units would free up internal volume on the vessels where it is most needed.
If this rationale is accepted, GE may enthusiastically promote the LM2500+G4 as a solution. This seems to be the most likely outcome, which will relegate the U.S. Navy's use of the MT30 to its current applications.
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