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POWER Digest [March 2018]

ABB Receives Contract to Upgrade, Expand Combined Cycle Plant

A consortium including Doosan Heavy Industries and state-owned construction company PT Hutama Karya has awarded a $40 million contract to ABB to upgrade and expand the 1,150-MW Muara Tawar power plant in West Java, Indonesia, which is operated by Indonesia’s national utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN). The project, outlined in late January, involves converting the existing gas-fired generator into an 1,800-MW combined cycle plant, adding generation capacity of 650 MW to the Indonesian grid. ABB will handle design, engineering, installation, and commissioning of supporting components and auxiliary systems at the facility. The contract also includes supporting a 500-kV Air Insulated Switchgear (AIS) substation, for which ABB will provide generator circuit breakers, medium- and low-voltage switchgear, and transformers and protection equipment.

Chinese Group Awarded EPC Contract for Egyptian Solar Plants

Construction is underway on three new solar power plants in Egypt. ACWA Power, a Saudi Arabian developer of power and water desalination projects, tabbed China’s Chint Solar to build the plants, located in the Aswan Province at Benban, Egypt. Chint was awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract in a signing ceremony at the World Future Energy Summit at Abu Dhabi in mid-January. The projects, which will have a total generation capacity of about 166 MW peak, are part of the Egyptian government’s goal of obtaining 20% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2022, a target set by the country’s Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy (MoERE) in its Egypt Vision 2022 and 2030 programs. ACWA Power said the plants represent an investment of $190 million. The projects are expected to come online by year-end 2018.

Construction begins at Bangladesh Ultrasupercritical Project.

Construction of a 1.2-GW ultrasupercritical coal-fired power plant kicked off in late January on Bangladesh’s Matarbari Island, about 280 kilometers southeast of the capital Dhaka. The $4.5 billion project owned by state-owned Coal Power Generation Co. Bangladesh Ltd. has the financial backing of the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The construction contract was awarded to a consortium comprising Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., IHI Corp., and Toshiba Corp. South Korea’s Posco Engineering & Construction Co. will tackle civil engineering and construction of raw material treatment facilities. The plant is slated for commissioning in January 2024. Bangladesh’s government says that the country’s power capacity has increased nearly fourfold over the last decade, from 3.2 GW in 2009 to 16 GW today, but that it needs the project for reliability.

Giant CSP Solar Project Planned in China

SPIC Shijiazhuang Dongfang Energy, a Chinese firm, on January 25 said it will build a $7.27 billion concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Inner Mongolia. The 2-GW project will be one of the largest of its kind when completed, but the company did not say when construction was expected to wrap up. The first phase of the project entails building 200 MW and associated facilities. China has plans to install 5 GW of CSP capacity by 2020. To date, the country has approved 20 pilot CSP projects with a total installed capacity of about 1.35 GW.

Investment Firm Snaps Up Asian, U.S. Renewables Businesses

Infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a company established in May 2006, on January 19 closed on the acquisition of Singapore-headquartered Equis Energy, the largest renewable energy independent power producer (IPP) in the Asia Pacific Region and a company with more than 180 assets comprising 11 GW in operation, construction, and development. GIP on February 7 also struck a $1.375 billon deal with NRG Energy, one of the largest IPPs in the U.S., for the bulk of the Princeton, New Jersey–headquartered firm’s renewables assets, agreeing to buy the company’s controlling stake and 46% economic interest in NRG Yield. GIP also acquired NRG’s renewable operations and maintenance, and development businesses. ■

Sonal Patel and Darrell Proctor are POWER associate editors.

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