GE to Supply Turbines for Hungary Plant

GE Power Systems has secured a contract of 125 million francs (about US$19 million) to supply a gas turbine and additional project support for a new, 110 MW power plant at Ujpest in the outskirts of Budapest, Hungary.

Fortum Engineering Oy of Helsinki, Finland is developing the project for Budapest Power Plant. Fortum is a joint venture between Finnish companies IVO and Neste. The new combined-cycle power plant will produce electricity plus hot water for district heating, with commercial start-up scheduled for November 2001.

GE is supplying an MS6001FA gas turbine with an output of about 70 MW. The mid-sized member of GE's family of advanced F technology gas turbines, the 6FA is designed for a variety of applications ranging from cogeneration and district heating to pure power generation. GE's total installed fleet of F technology gas turbines, which also includes 7FA (60 Hz) and 9FA (50 Hz) machines, has surpassed 2.6 million hours of commercial operation worldwide.

The 6FA for this project will be manufactured in GE Power Systems' gas turbine facility in Belfort, France and shipped to Ujpest in October 2000. Primary fuel will be natural gas, with light distillate as the back-up fuel. A GE Dry Low NOx system will limit emissions to 25 parts per million (ppm) on natural gas. When the gas turbine operates on light distillate, water injection will be used to reduce NOx levels.

In addition to the 6FA gas turbine, GE's project scope includes installation, training, and a two-year supply of spare parts. Austrian Energy will supply the boiler, Lang will provide the steam turbine, and Skoda will supply the generator. Fortum is providing the project financing.

This is GE's second project with Budapest Power Plant. GE supplied an MS9001E gas turbine for the expansion of the Kelenföld power plant in Budapest, which was completed by ELIN Energieversorgung of Austria in 1995.

Edited by April C. Murelio
editor@poweronline.com