GE wins US$300m gas turbine contract in KSA

GE is helping the SEC upgrade its power generation capacity.

GE announced on Tuesday that it has received a contract worth around US$300m to supply five additional steam turbines to the Saudi Electric Company’s (SEC) Qurayyah open cycle power plant in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.

The steam turbines are schedules to be installed by the second quarter of 2012. They will be added to the 15 existing GE turbines, and convert the plant into an open-cycle operation, boosting the site’s power output to around 3,100MW from the current 1,900MW.

"One of our central priorities is to increase the efficiency of our power production, within the context of increasing our electricity output to meet the Kingdom's growing power needs," said Eng. Ali Saleh Al-Barrak, SEC president and CEO. “Converting the Qurayyah plant to combined-cycle operation will allow us to produce more power from the same amount of natural gas, which also helps meet our environmental requirements."

With its rapidly growing population and economic development, Saudi Arabia's demand for electricity has been increasing at a rate of 8 percent or more a year. Saudi Arabia's Industry and Electricity Ministry estimates that the Kingdom will require up to 20 gigawatts of additional power-generating capacity by 2019.

In a combined-cycle configuration, exhaust gas from a gas turbine-generator is converted to steam, which is used to drive a steam turbine-generator, enabling the plant to produce additional power without an increase in fuel consumption. The increased fuel efficiency of combined-cycle technology means that less carbon dioxide is produced
 

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