GE Offering Cross-Fleet Turbine Upgrade For Sappi

GE announced an order for a multiyear services agreement with Sappi, a global provider of sustainable wood fiber products and solutions.

GE will provide long-term maintenance services and performance upgrades on a 42 MW gas turbine supplied by another equipment manufacturer, powering Sappi’s industrial process. GE said this project highlights its commitment to its Cross-Fleet solutions portfolio, which injects GE technology into other equipment manufacturers’ units and effectively adopts them into the GE services installed base. GE said its solution will allow Sappi to reduce its costs through a maintenance interval extension and performance benefits.

“With over 400 years of paper production experience, Sappi’s Gratkorn Mill in Austria has been designed to create superior-quality paper using the latest technology,” said Max Oberhumer, mill director of Sappi Gratkorn. “As a company that relies on renewable natural resources, sustainability is at our core and achieving ambitious sustainability targets helps us deliver the highest quality products. We decided to rely on GE’s proven gas turbine technology to modernize our gas turbine and to enable us to improve the long-term performance and availability of our cogeneration facility in Gratkorn. GE’s total plant solutions will improve efficiency, power output and the lifetime of our industrial operations, while improving our plant’s profitability.”

Sappi operates one of the largest and most advanced coated fine paper production lines in the world.  The cogeneration plant provides steam and electricity for the paper mill production facilities with the highest efficiency and availability.

“Due to the age of the plant, Sappi is taking the opportunity to modernize its SGT-800 gas turbine with GE’s equipment to increase power output and improve efficiency,” said Martin O’Neill, Growth Platforms Leader for GE’s Power Services business. “Improvements will allow them to save fuel costs while at the same time improve the availability of the gas turbine through extended maintenance intervals, further reducing the cost of maintaining the unit.”

The upgrades at the Gratkorn plant include new gas turbine hardware infused with GE’s patented materials and cooling technology and improved engine component architecture, which takes advantage of decades of experience in developing and manufacturing gas turbines. This technology is part of GE’s investment in its Cross-Fleet solutions portfolio that provides technology and services to specific gas turbines, which includes the SGT-800 unit.