Bangladesh Power Development Board has awarded a $117 million order to a consortium led by General Electric for repowering of the Unit 3 of Ghorashal power plant, the largest power station in the country.
GE said this would be the country’s first repowering project, which will increase the power generation capacity by adding over 200 megawatts of clean power to the national grid.
The US-based company has formed the consortium with China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation.
The project calls for repowering the existing steam turbine—which is run by a gas-fired boiler—by transforming it into a combined cycle power plant.
The repowering will be achieved by installing a gas turbine and a heat recovery steam generator to generate an efficient 416.3MW in combined cycle mode.
Repowering is the process of replacing older power stations with newer ones that either have a greater capacity or more efficiency which results in a net increase of power generated.
“GE is proud to be a partner in building and expanding the power generation infrastructure of Bangladesh and is committed to helping the country achieve its energy goals of providing electricity to all by 2021,” Deepesh Nanda, CEO of GE for South Asia, said in a statement.
“With this project, GE’s suite of combined cycle power plant solutions will breathe new life into the plant while helping to lower its carbon footprint substantially.”
As part of the overall repowering scope, the station’s existing steam turbine will be retrofitted with GE’s advanced reaction design steam turbine to suit the new steam parameters.
The company has installed more than 6 gigawatts of repowering projects worldwide. Currently, about 1.9 GW of Bangladesh’s installed power base is from GE, representing more than 30 gas turbines.
Source: The Daily Star
