The German company Siemens aims to add 14,400 MW to the national electricity grid by May 2018, by completing work on three projects that are to be implemented in Borolos, the New Administrative Capital, and Beni Suef.
The additional capacity factor constitutes about half of Egypt’s current domestic consumption.
The three stations are expected to be able to produce enough power to meet the needs of 45 million people, by increasing to the total grid’s current capacity by 50%. Furthermore, about 26% of electricity will be produced through Siemens’s products.
Siemens has provided Egypt with a large part of its distribution grid, where it supports sustainable development and long-term economic growth.
Daily News Egypt visited the Fortuna power plant in the German city of Dusseldorf. The station is considered the world’s largest power plant, in terms of its efficiency that amounts to 61%. This power plant is the blueprint for the new stations that will be established in Egypt in Borolos, the New Administrative Capital, and Beni Suef in terms of efficiency, maintenance periods, and low gas consumption. The stations are expected to be operational for the next 25 years.
Lothar Balling, Executive Vice President of Siemens, said that the Fortuna station is a tourism monument in Dusseldorf, where the glass building is lit with three distinguished colours.
Balling explained that the station has one of the largest turbines in the world as well as 16 boilers to produce air as hot as 1,600 degrees that is used to run the turbines and then distribute it to houses. The Fortuna station is environment friendly.
Balling added that the Fortuna station reduces about 1.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year through each of its 600 MW units. The station is located in the west-side of Dusseldorf in front of the Rhine River, on which it relies for central cooling.
Fortuna station serves 2.4 million people in the city and it comes as an extension to an older coal station that was built 70 years ago. Siemens has been taking down the old station part-by-part to avoid compromising work on the new station. The station operated for a total of 5,000 hours last year at full capacity.
Balling added that the Beni Suef power plant that Siemens will implement will be even more efficient than the Fortuna station and will become the highest quality power plant in the world.
The Egyptian government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Siemens during the Egypt Economic Development Conference held in Sharm El Sheikh in March 2015 to establish two power plants, in addition to a wind farm with a capacity of 2,000 MW. In June 2015, the MoU was signed as an official contract in Berlin during a ceremony attended by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The final details of the contract indicate that the two power plants and the wind farm require $8bn in investment. In December, the government signed another contract with Siemens to ensure provisions for the construction the Beni Suef power plant.
The German Siemens began shipping the main construction components to Egypt in March 2016, only 12 months after the MOU was issued. The company has also begun training 600 Egyptian engineers and technicians and signed financing contracts for both stations in Borolos and the New Administrative Capital.
Siemens oversee the implementation of the three combined-cycle natural gas power stations. The stations will use 24 H-Class gas turbines, 12 steam turbines and 36 electricity generators. The company will also establish three gas-insulated transformers stations with a capacity factor of 500 KV. The H-Class 400 MW capacity is equivalent to 10 model A380 aircraft engines.
CEO of the Power and Gas Division at Siemens Global Willi Meixner said his company is working at a fast pace to complete the Egyptian projects, adding that these projects are being established at competitive costs compared to other Siemens projects.
He pointed out that the new power plants will initially introduce an additional 4.4 MW to the national grid by the end of December 2016, before increasing to a total addition of 14.4 MW in 2018. The three plants will save EGP 1.3bn annually by decreasing fuel consumption.
Meixner stated the Engineering Authorities construction of the power plant in the New Administrative Capital is proceeding well. The building crew has already poured concrete foundations for gas turbines and the buildings that will house steam boilers. The plant is already operating a temporary generator with a 5 MW capacity factor. Another gas turbine that is equipped with its own generation and a single transformer of 500 KV will be installed in June.
The company will install a gas turbine and generator in the Borollos power station in May, while two other gas turbines and their generators will be installed in June. The transformers of the four 500 KV generations will be installed over the course of June and July, according to Meixner.
Meixner added that the first two gas turbines were shipped to Adabiya port and will be installed in the coming days at the Beni Suef power plant.
Daily News Egypt visited the gas turbine factory of Siemens in Berlin, where the German company celebrated the shipment of gas turbine No 1000, which was manufactured in its factory. The new gas turbine SGT5-4000F 300 weighs 300 metric tons. The gas turbine headed to Umm Al-Houl power station in Qatar, which operates on a combined-cycle system.
The Siemens gas turbine factory in Berlin is shipping its 1,000th gas turbine manufactured at the plant. The SGT5-4000F gas turbine, which has a capacity factor of 300 MW and weighs 300 metric tonnes, is destined for the Umm Al-Houl combined-cycle power plant in Qatar.
The total installed capacity of the 1,000 gas turbines produced in Berlin, amounting to nearly 220 GW, would be sufficient to theoretically supply approximately 1 billion people with electricity. The total capacity of the 1,000 gas turbines is thus equivalent to the current power generated in Spain and Italy combined.
Meixner, said that supplying1,000 gas turbines from Berlin to customers from 65 countries all over the world is a significant achievement. More than 90% of the 1,000 gas turbines that produced in Berlin have been exported.
The turbine whose departure was witnessed by Daily News Egypt will first be shipped from the factory to the Westhafen port in Berlin, and then it will be shipped to Rotterdam. Upon arriving to the port, it will be loaded on a heavy cargo vessel where it will then cross the Atlantic Ocean and enter the Mediterranean Sea through the Gibraltar Strait. It will then pass through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal and round the Arabian Peninsula to eventually reach Qatar.
The gas turbine is one of six model SGT5-4000F turbines, dedicated to the Umm Al-Houl combined-cycle power plant. Siemens is supplying the major components in addition to equipping it with the power systems of which their total capacity amounts to 2.5 GW. In addition to electricity generation, the integrated seawater desalinisation plant produces up to 618m litres of drinking water for Qatar every day.
The turbine factory in Berlin was established in 1904. It shipped its first steam turbines to the Trust power plant in South Australia in 1972.
Siemens provides high quality combined-cycle power plants that help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 61%.
He added that the combined-cycle power plants using SGT5-8000H gas turbines are perfectly suitable to meet Egypt’s needs, for these turbines combine the high productivity with record levels of efficiency.
He noted that the company has signed contracts with a number of countries to whom it will provide 78 H class turbines. The biggest contract signed by the company was with Egypt for the provision of 24 H class turbines, followed by South Korea and the United States of America who will receive 15 turbines each.
Siemens’ CEO of Global Sales Karim Amin stated that the water desalination plant to be implemented in Ain Sokhna will use a new technology.
Siemens has applied for a license to manufacture turbine blades and is awaiting decision. The Ain Sokhna project has attracted approximately €70m in investments.
Siemens will own the factory without having partnered with the government. The produced turbines will be exported to many countries.
The three plants will be implemented according to an agreed timetable. When equipment reaches the construction site in Beni Suef, eight gas turbines will be unloaded and installed in the machinery room at the power plant.
The plant will operate through a simple-cycle system during the first phase, before using a combined-cycle system to increase a capacity of 4.8GW. Beni Suef’s plant will be capable of providing electricity to approximately 21.6m people. Therefore, it will be the world’s largest combined-cycle power plant.
Siemens has already shipped the turbines to the Adabiya port, where, upon arrival, they will be transferred to the power plant project in Beni Suef.
