Water turbine took about one hundred years. Development occurred during the Industrial revolution, using scientific principles and methods. They also made extensive use of new materials and manufacturing methods developed at the time. The word turbine was introduced by the French engineer Claude Burdin in the early 19th century and is derived from the Greek word "τύρβη" for "whirling" or a "vortex". The main difference between early water turbines and water wheels is a swirl component of the water which passes energy to a spinning rotor. This additional component of motion allowed the turbine to be smaller than a water wheel of
Westinghouse Combustion Turbine Systems Division is typically adequate energy in the exhaust of the gas turbine to generate enough steam to produce about 50% of the gas turbine power, or, in this case, only 75MW. In this way, the original PACE plant design had built-in steam turbine capacity to enable the water/steam side of the plant to remain essentially the same as the gas turbine power rating evolved through to the 100MW-plus W501D5, when the rating of the plant was 300MW without supplemental firing. The PACE 260 was initially offered with a heat rate of about 8,100 Btu/kWh (42% efficiency) LHV on natural gas fuel.