GE Power Ties Client Relationship Knots with Eco Friendliness

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources; Houston, Texas). Every contract won in the power and energy sectors has a environmental and sustainable audit tag on it these days and that certainly goes for the largest companies who enhance corporate profile and market positioning with the eco plus factors in each contract announcement. The application of greener, more efficient techniques developed from the bases of past generation 'dirty' technologies reduces pollutants and waste in greater volumes than any other activity. The power to investment ratio is growing keener by the year for all types of power generating product and the hybrid and redeveloped technologies demonstrate positive competitive margins and operating efficiency improvements.

In Australia, GE Hydro, a business unit of GE Power Systems (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut), has won a turnkey contract from SunWater (Brisbane), the largest bulk water supplier in Queensland, to build a new small hydro project in the far north of the state.

The turbine for the 1.6 MW Tinaroo mini power station will be manufactured at GE Hydro's Norway facility. The plant which will start operating towards the end of 2003 will sell its power output to a local electric utility for distribution through its 22kV network and will provide enough green power to supply the needs of about 100 households a year.

SunWater owns a number of potential hydro power sites in Queensland that GE is hoping to develop with SunWater. The hydro power schemes are in tune with Australian federal and state government legislation which encourages investments in development that reduces greenhouse gases by setting targets for the generation of electricity from renewable resources.

GE Hydro, in Norway, will build the new, environmentally friendly Kaplan turbine runners in a contract for Vattenfall Vattenkraft, Sweden's largest electricity utility, which is government owned. The projects are at the Naverede and Grundfors power plants and have a total value of $4.25 million.

For each of the two run-of-river plants, GE will build and install a Kaplan turbine with a design that uses water instead of oil inside the runner hub to reduce the risk of oil spillage into the environment during operation or maintenance. GE's implementation of the reduced-oil or oil-free Kaplan turbine designs, that include oil-free runners, hubs and greaseless bushings, is a major departure from the oil filled runners which have been in use since the 1920's.

GE Hydro will supply The Naverede plant with a 35 MW, 6.95 meter diameter turbine runner with a 12.5 meter head. Grundfors will have a 54 MW, 4.87 diameter runner and a head of 35.2 meters. The work scope for both projects also includes overhaul of the turbines with self lubricated bushings and provision of a new high pressure regulating system. Both plants are scheduled to resume commercial operation in November 2003.

Vattenfall Vattenkraft is engaged in a program to renovate many of its hydro power stations, which were originally commissioned in the 1950's and 60's. The company serves 1.5 million customers in Sweden's regulated market through he production, distribution and sale of electricity and district heating. Generation plants include large, medium and small hydro power stations and three nuclear power plants.

In another contract, where emission limitations are stressed, GE will supply SK Engineering and Construction of Seoul, Korea with a combined-cycle power plant which will be built at KwangYang in the south of the country. This is SK's first independent power project and GE will supply four Frame 7FA gas turbine generators, spare parts, technical services and training for the new plant. The gas turbines will be manufactured at GE's facility in South Carolina and the generators will be built at the company's New York plant. The first two sets will be shipped in December 2003 with commercial start-up scheduled for March 2005 and the second will enter service in September 2005 after shipping in June 2004.

The generators are rated at 170 MW, with NOx emissions limited to 20 parts per million at 13% O2. The hydrogen cooled generators for the project are rated at 229 MVA. Natural gas will fuel the plant which will supply power to the country's grid.

GE has 26 7FA machines in operation or being installed in Korea and worldwide their F technology turbines have topped 6 million hours of commercial operation.

In these types of contract environmental friendliness warms both the supplier and the client companies to their mutually reported satisfaction.