Italian utility A2A is using its revamped Chivasso power plant in the ancillary service market. Retrofitted with GE digital solutions, the gas-fired plant now achieves 65 MW per gas turbine minimum load level which makes it competitive again for dispatch in balancing markets.
A2A is planning to install GE’s big data analytics solutions in more power plants to improve fleet performance and operation. At the Chivasso plant, GE installed its first steam turbine in Italy in 1952 – a combustion upgrade of two 9FA gas turbines as well as controls and software solutions were retrofitted late last year.
Chivasso is the first digitalised asset in A2A’s power plant fleet. It now achieves 65 MW per gas turbine minimum load level—the best in GE’s 9FA fleet—and enabling load ramping at up to 50 MW per minute or two-and-a-half times the normal rate.
Valerio Camerano, A2A chief executive commented “these upgrades allowed us to restart the Chivasso plant in November 2015 after we were forced to mothball the facility three years ago because the plant could not respond quickly enough to changing grid demands.” Retrofitted with GE’s hardware and software solutions, the operator can now react more quickly to market conditions while reducing the plant’s operating costs.
Operation optimization software improves data visibility across A2A power plants, including non-GE equipment and fleet-wide footprints. This gives a more holistic understanding of the operational decisions that can expand capabilities, lower production costs and improve reliability.
“GE’s digital solutions are breathing new life into power plants previously believed to be unsustainable, and our technologies allow A2A to reinvent how it operates its assets,” said Paul McElhinney, head of GE’s Power Services business.
Over the past 15 years, GE optimised a total of six 9FA gas turbines at A2A’s Chivasso, Cassano and Sermide power plants by installing GE’s OpFlex advanced controls software to reduce plant downtime and interruptions in production while increasing plant responsiveness to meet fast-changing grid demands.