First Wärtsilä 50DF power plant in Turkey

Wärtsilä Corporation, Trade press release 24 September 2004 at 12:00 UTC+2

Wärtsilä Corporation has been awarded a major power plant contract for an 84.8 MWe replacement and extension of an existing diesel power plant at Manisa in western Turkey. It involves the first Wärtsilä 50DF generating sets for a power plant installation, while Wärtsilä 34SG sets will be added in the extension. The new plant will allow a change of fuel from heavy fuel oil to natural gas.

In 1999, Wärtsilä supplied a 54.3 MW baseload plant to Manisa with three Wärtsilä 18V46 diesel generating sets. It met the heat and electricity demand of Manisa Organised Industrial District (MOSB), one of Turkey’s largest such business centres. MOSB houses some 115 companies from a range of industries, including paper, electronics, furniture, chemicals, textiles and food.

Under the new contract, the existing diesel generating sets are to be replaced by three Wärtsilä 18V50DF sets, each having an electrical output of 16,638 kWe. In addition, four Wärtsilä 20V34SG generating sets will be installed, each giving 8730 kWe. The plant is being supplied under an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.

The plant will have a high overall efficiency and be very flexible in operation. High energy efficiency will be given by the use of waste heat recovery to supply hot water and steam to the industrial park. The total steam production capacity will be around 40 tonnes/h at a pressure of 14 bar. Hot water will be fed into the district heating system of the industrial park, with the heating network having a pipeline length of 6 km.

The generators will deliver electricity through 34.5 kV transformers to the local grid of the industrial park. Excess electricity will also be sold to the public grid at a price determined by the Turkish electricity authority.

Flexibility will be given by the use of two sizes of generating sets and the dual-fuel capability of the larger generating sets. Whereas the existing engines burn heavy fuel oil, the new engines will all run on natural gas which is piped to the site. The Wärtsilä 50DF engines are dual-fuel engines which have a pilot injection of a small quantity of light fuel oil to ignite the gas fuel. They can also switch over to operate solely on fuel oil in the event of an interruption in gas supply. The Wärtsilä 34SG engines are pure gas engines with spark ignition of the gas fuel.

When the engines are running on natural gas, the plant will be able to meet the environmental regulations without using the existing deSOx system that was installed with the original heavy fuel-burning engines for removing sulphur oxides from the exhaust gases. The dual-fuel engines will bypass the deSOx system when they are burning natural gas. Then if the operator should want to switch the 50DF engines to heavy fuel oil the deSOx will be put back into operation.

The installation of the plant requires careful organisation. The existing generating sets are to be replaced within a time span of seven months. However, it will be necessary to exchange the sets while keeping two sets running at all times. The Wärtsilä 18V50DF generating sets are scheduled for delivery in September this year and the Wärtsilä 34SG sets will be delivered in January 2005. The construction time of the power plant extension is eight months.

The deliveries of the Wärtsilä 34SG engine type alone has already exceeded the 1000 MW milestone, which proves the success of this engine type in gas power plant applications all over the world. To date Wärtsilä has delivered more than 3.6 GW of gas and dual-fuel engines.

Caption: The 54.3 MW baseload plant in Manisa, Turkey, currently powered by three Wärtsilä 18V46 generating sets, will be extended to 84.8 MW.

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 offers 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 Global Communications
Tel: +852 2609 0691
Fax: +852 2609 1351
Mobile: +852 6125 2609
e-mail: john@ceejay.com.hk