Wärtsilä Corporation has won two new Combined Heat and Power (CHP) projects in Mexico, bringing the total combined capacity for the company’s power plants and ship power in Mexico to more than 400 MW.
“The efforts and investments made by Wärtsilä in Mexico are beginning to show positive results,” said Frank Donnelly, Vice President, Power Plants of Wärtsilä North America Inc. “Today, Wärtsilä is recognized as the leading manufacturer of gas and oil-fired engine-based power plants in Mexico and a major ship power and service supplier. Our installations in Mexico, which include power plants for utilities, the food and paper industries, along with our new service center that opened this summer in Veracruz, gives Wärtsilä a very strong foothold in this emerging market.”
Since 1992, when the Mexican constitution was modified to allow private companies to produce electricity themselves, Wärtsilä has been the vanguard in building such self-production facilities. Wärtsilä’s most recent Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts are with Cartones Ponderosa, one of the largest producers of cardboard in Mexico, and Pronal (Productora Nacional de Papel), a paper producer.
Ponderosa Cardboard
Wärtsilä will install a CHP system at Cartones Ponderosa consisting of three Wärtsilä 18V32 engines with a total electrical output of 19.39 MWe at 60 Hz. Located in San Juan del Río, Queretaro, the plant is designed to produce 9,873 kg/h +/-5% of steam, to be used for internal processes that result in an annual product output of 200,000 metric tons.
Ponderosa has had experience in power generation as they were the first in Mexico to install a self-generation facility with a capacity of 6.5 MW consisting of four gas turbines. Evaluations were conducted, and Ponderosa decided to replace their existing equipment with a Wärtsilä CHP facility, based on Wärtsilä’s higher efficiency, the ability to burn Mexican heavy fuel oil, and the flexibility of converting to dual-fuel operation in the future.
Pronal
Pronal, a major producer of paper for newspapers, is undergoing an extensive upgrading process at their facility in Villa de Reyes, San Luis Potosí, and has selected a Wärtsilä CHP facility as part of this upgrade. The CHP system will consist of two Wärtsilä 18V32 engines, including space for a future expansion, with a total electrical output of 12.68 MWe at 60 Hz. The plant will also produce of 6582 kg/h +/-5% of steam to be used in Pronal’s internal processes.
Notes to the editor:
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 more information on Wärtsilä, visit the website at www.wartsila.com
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 Limited
Tel: +852 2609 0691
Fax: +852 2609 1351
Mobile: +852 6125 2877
e-mail: john@ceejay.com.hk
