Endesa’s Turbine Modernization Offers 25 Year Life Extension and 3% Consumption Bonus

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). A $72 million modernization program project planned by the major power utility Endesa (NYSE:ELE) (Madrid, Spain) at five of its power stations on the Iberian Peninsula will extend the useful life of the units’ turbines by about 25 years. The process consists of removing all the moving (rotor) and fixed elements of the high and medium pressure turbines and replacing them with new, highly efficient materials incorporating state-of-the-art designs. Only the outer shells of the turbines currently operating will remain after modernization.

The project will be applied to the steam turbines at the coal fed plants at As Pontes (La Coruna), Compostilla (Ponferrada), Teruel (Andorra-Teruel), Litoral (Almeira) and Los Barrios (Cadiz) plants. The modernization will be carried out to coincide with the schedule for major services at the power plants or, in the case of the As Pontes plant, conversion of the boilers. Turnkey contracts for the work have been awarded to three turbine manufacturing companies. Work on the project will start in July 2007 and run through 2010 when the work on the Compostilla power station will be completed.

Efficient design and the use of new materials will achieve the primary objective of the program which is to improve the specific consumption efficiency of each plant by 3%. Other benefits from the project will be increased power output, improved availability and reduced maintenance costs stemming from the use of newly designed components that suffer less wear and tear between services. Power output from these plants will become progressively more competitive.

The improvements and efficiencies flowing from the program will lead to environmental benefits in yearly savings of about 290,000 tons of coal and CO2 emissions of 550,000 tpa.

The over 200,000 hours of assembly work on the project over the next three years will create 42 direct jobs at the plants and about 20 indirect jobs to manufacture numerous items over the course of the project.

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