Turbine Upgrade Boosts Output At Mexico Plant

GE’s Power Services business said its cross-fleet gas turbine upgrade project at the Fuerza y Energía de Tuxpan facility in Mexico achieved an output increase of 9.2% and a 2.9% efficiency improvement on one of Tuxpan’s gas turbines, while extending maintenance intervals to 32 000 hours for the 450-MW power plant.

GE said it applied its cross-fleet technologies to two Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. M501F gas turbines and two steam turbines, helping Tuxpan deliver power more competitively to an expanding electricity segment across eight states in Mexico. Tuxpan is owned by Global Power Generation (GPG), the international power generation subsidiary of Naturgy and the Kuwait Investment Authority.

“At GPG, we provide service to more than 1.5 million people, and we are continuously looking for ways to improve the availability and efficiency of our operations to better serve our customers,” said Fernando Ramos, chief operating officer of GPG. “GE’s cross-fleet upgrade for our M501F machines achieved better results than they promised, allowing us to realize greater value from our equipment and improve our plant performance. Having a services provider like GE that can address plant-level improvements is important. One of our biggest concerns when upgrading a gas turbine is ensuring the rest of the plant can support any changes in performance.”

GE completed the work as part of a 12-year agreement, showcasing its Fleet360* platform, which offers plant owners tailored solutions for all power generation equipment, regardless of whether the components were originally supplied by GE or another equipment manufacturer.

The upgrades include new gas turbine hardware infused with GE’s patented materials technology and improved engine component architecture, which takes advantage of decades of experience in developing and manufacturing gas turbines. GE also serviced Tuxpan’s steam turbines, uprated its generator systems and installed a combustion dynamics monitoring system to help the site identify combustion issues before they occur.

“GPG was the ideal candidate with which to develop this new upgrade, and this milestone strengthens our long-standing relationship,” saidJim Kaveney, president and CEO of the Americas region for GE’s Power Services business. “Over the last 20 months, GE has maintained and serviced gas turbines installed at three power plants to lower their operational costs. Today, this project shows how GE solutions can increase the level of flexibility and performance at the plant level and help our customers, like GPG, remain competitive in a highly dynamic industry.”

In May, GE unveiled a range of capabilities to advance the performance and serviceability of other OEM gas turbine fleets, including Siemens’ and Mitsubishi’s SGT-800 and 501F units. GE also announced more than US$200 million in backlogged gas turbine cross-fleet orders. GE’s injection of its advanced capabilities and technology into these fleets will help gas plant operators, like GPG, gain more flexibility and efficiency along with longer maintenance intervals and better overall performance. The completion of the project at Tuxpan marks the latest of 12 completed outages across varying scopes and engine types since the inception of the cross-fleet solutions business.