Japan’s Hitachi Zosen Corporation has earlier this year ordered 20 gas engine power generation units from Wärtsilä, Finland. Hitachi Zosen is the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor for a series of over 10 power plants which will be situated at different locations across Japan.
The power plants will feature the successful Wärtsilä 18V34SG engine operating on natural gas. The electrical outputs of the 6 MW power plants will vary from location to location as some power plants will be in 50Hz areas and some will be located in 60Hz areas.
The contract’s scope with Wärtsilä covers each power plant’s main equipment: generating units, control system and critical auxiliaries. Most of the equipment will be delivered in the first half of 2005. The control system will be customized with Hitachi Zosen to suit the customer’s requirements and includes bi-lingual (English / Japanese) human/machine interface.
The power plants’ applications will be for generation of both heat and electricity. The plants are mainly for industrial captive power consumption in which any excess electricity will be exported to the grid. The plants are scheduled to be commissioned in the last quarter of 2005.
Hitachi Zosen’s industrial customers want environmental impacts as well as lower energy costs. Japan’s day time electricity tariff is very high, while the night time tariff is low. The new power plants, with their high electrical efficiencies, will operate during the day on a daily start stop (DSS) mode, thus generating savings for the owners.
In the face of tough competition from domestic suppliers, Hitachi Zosen decided to award the contract to Wärtsilä due to their engine’s higher efficiencies and the competitive price.
“Hitachi Zosen started promoting Wärtsilä gas engines two years ago. We built a 12 MW power plant at our Kanagawa works during 2002 for our demonstration purposes. The positive results of our decisions and good marketing can now be clearly seen. We believe Wärtsilä gas engines have a big potential to become best sellers,” Mr. Kobashi, Hitachi Zosen, General Manager comments.
Notes to the editor:
About Wärtsilä:
Wärtsilä is The Ship Power Supplier for builders, owners and operators of vessels and offshore installations. We are the only company with a global service network to take complete care of customers’ ship machinery at every lifecycle stage. Wärtsilä is a leading provider of power plants, operation and lifetime care services in decentralized power generation. The company provides power plants for baseload, peaking, and combined heat and power applications. Wärtsilä also supplies complete solutions for mechanical drive applications onshore and offshore. The product range comprises gas- and oil-fired power plants with outputs from 1 MW to 300 MW, biopower plants with outputs from 1 to 5 MWe and biothermal plants for 3-17 MWth.
Wärtsilä is headquartered in Helsinki with representatives in more than 60 countries. Production facilities are located in Finland, Norway and Italy with assembly plants in Spain and India.
Wärtsilä supplied more than 1,100 MW of power generation equipment around the world in 2003.
For further information, please contact:
Yvonne Rönn
Public Relations Manager, Power Plants
Wärtsilä Finland Oy
Direct tel: +358 10 709 1456
Direct fax: +358 10 709 1425
e-mail: yvonne.ronn@wartsila.com
Internet: www.wartsila.com
John Goss
Ceejay International Communications
Tel: +852 2609 0691
Fax: +852 2609 1351
Mobile: +852 6125 2609
e-mail: john@ceejay.com.hk
