Verbund Fires-up Mellach Gas-Fired Plant in Austria

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- A new gas-fired plant has been officially commissioned in Austria by the country's Verbund Thermal Power GmbH & Co. KG (Graz, Austria).

The combined-cycle power plant (CCPP) at Mellach in the Styria region has an electricity generating capacity of 838-megawatts (MW) and a claimed efficiency rating of 59.2%. The plant will also deliver a district heating output of 400 MWth. The plant was constructed and handed over by Siemens Austria, part of Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany).

The Mellach CCPP runs on natural gas and is located to the south of the regional capital of Graz. It has two new power plant units - 10 and 20 -- which are designed as single-shaft plants with the major components arranged on the same shaft. Siemens supplied and installed two SGT5-4000F gas turbines, two SST5-5000 steam turbines, two SGen5-2000H generators, all the electrical equipment, and the SPPA-T3000 instrumentation and control system.

The plant will be capable of generating around five billion kilowatt hours (KWh) of electricity annually, in addition to about 800 million kWh of district heating.

"The new plant replaces five older units in southern Austria that were run on lignite or oil fuel, thus saving up to two million tons of CO2 per year," explained Walter Mayer, board member at Verbund Thermal Power. "Heat-and-power cogeneration also brings an immediate advantage for the Graz metropolitan area, where dust-free district heating makes an effective contribution to improving air quality."

Roland Fischer, CEO of the Fossil Power Generation division at Siemens Energy, added: "The Mellach combined cycle power plant meets the highest standards in terms of efficiency and flexibility. Fast start-up times and steep load gradients make the plant ideal for supplementing volatile power generation from renewable energy sources. The highly efficient design of the heat extraction system also reduces CO2 emissions significantly."

Work on the Mellach plant kicked off in early 2009 and involved an investment of approximately €630 million ($785 million). Verbund Thermal Power GmbH & Co. KG is a subsidiary of Verbund AG (Vienna, Austria) and operates power plants in Mellach, Duernrohr and Neudorf-Werndorf with a total capacity of 815 MW. For additional information see August 20, 2009, article - Construction Advances at 830-Megawatt Combined-Cycle Plant in Austria.

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