GE & Bangpa-In Cogeneration Sign Aeroderivative Service Agreement
Highlighting GE’s technical expertise and regional capabilities in support of the country’s Small Power Producers (SPP) Program, GE and Bangkok-based power plant developer Bangpa-In Cogeneration Ltd, a subsidiary of CK Power Plc., have announced the signing of a $33 million service agreement. Under the agreement, GE will provide inspection and planned maintenance services for 12 years for two GE LM6000-PD aeroderivative gas turbines at a 110-megawatt (MW) gas-fired cogeneration plant being built in Bangpa-In, in Thailand’s Ayutthaya Province.
“To provide Thailand’s power grid with stable, reliable energy and to achieve the operational and economic goals we set for this plant, it was vital to put in place and to properly maintain power generation technology that has been proven to be flexible, efficient and reliable,” said Mr. Woravudh Anuruxwongsri, managing director, Bangpa-In Cogeneration Ltd. “We selected GE LM6000 technology because it is world class, and we signed this service agreement with GE because of the company’s technical expertise and its regional capabilities in field service support, engineering, facilities, tooling and leasing.”
The plant entered commercial operation in June 2013. Its output will be sold to the national power utility, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), as a majority of the plant’s power output and the remaining power will be supplied to direct users located in the Industrial Estate. Thailand’s SPP Program promotes investment in smaller-scale power plants of two types: cogeneration plants such as Bangpa-In, which combine both heat and power generation for high efficiency, and plants which run on renewable energy resources.
These all can benefit greatly from GE’s innovative distributed power solutions, which enable businesses and communities around the world to generate more reliable and efficient power using a variety of fuels and in diverse locations on or off the grid.
“Thailand’s SPP program is a linchpin in the country’s efforts to diversify its power generation infrastructure and to increase the percentage of power in the grid that is generated by cleaner, highly efficient sources,” said Darryl Wilson, vice president and chief commercial officer distributed power for GE Power & Water. “A key strategy to accomplish that is to employ proven technology, and we are pleased that our LM6000-PD units and our field service offerings were selected for Bangpa-In.”
GE’s LM6000 aeroderivative technology provides greater flexibility through its fast-start capability (10 minutes from cold iron), daily/multiple startups with no impact on the equipment maintenance cost and through its low turndown level (approximately 25 percent of power plant capacity).
The LM6000 has been proven in thousands of applications worldwide. In June, GE celebrated the milestone of the LM6000 achieving more than 21 million operating hours, with more than 1,000 units shipped to customers globally four times more experience than all other competing gas turbines in its class combined.
GE’s innovative LM6000 aeroderivative gas turbines operate at high reliability and flexibility and are capable of zero water consumption while achieving lower emissions compared to other units in their class. The LM6000 offers reliability of more than 99 percent and availability of more than 97 percent, along with a high level of operating flexibility and proven dry low nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions technology that guarantees NOx emissions as low as 25 ppm at 15 percent Oxygen. The machine’s high efficiency enables lower fuel consumption per unit of power output than competitive technologies, yielding fuel cost savings and carbon dioxide reductions for turbine operators.
