General Electric's Power Services has been commissioned by Chile's power generation company AES Gener to provide services and tools to overhaul up to nine steam turbines and generators at four thermal-fired power plants. As part of the multi-year agreement, GE will overhaul nine steam turbines located at four different thermal-fired power plants throughout Chile, GE said in a statement.
Of those, eight are of other manufacturers and one from GE. The agreement also includes an option to expand the scope of work.
The first of the nine turbine-generator projects began in September 2016, when GE overhauled a steam turbine and generator at the 264-megawatt (MW) Nueva Tocopilla thermal-fired power plant in the Antofagasta Region located about 1,500 km from Santiago de Chile.
The company said the projects were amid increasing demand for electricity in Chile, which is set to rise some 3.5% per year.
“While part of Chile’s additional generation capacity will come from increased renewable energy production, the nation’s utilities also are making significant investments to increase the output and efficiency of their existing thermal power stations to help meet the country’s growing demands for cleaner, more affordable electricity,” said Ramon Paramio, general manager of GE’s Power Services in Latin America.
The turbine-generator service agreement comes less than a year after GE and Sociedad Eléctrica Santiago, an entity controlled by AES Gener, announced a multi-year services agreement for the 379-MW Nueva Renca Power Plant, a natural gas combined-cycle power plant in the Santiago region. The Nueva Renca plant is powered by one GE 9FA gas turbine in combined-cycle mode with a GE D11 steam turbine, GE said.