Upper Egypt Electricity Production Company (UEEPC) has ordered three 650MW supercritical steam turbines and generators from Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Toyota Tsusho for the South Helwan power plant. The 1.95GW plant will normally burn gas, but run on heavy fuel oil (HFO) during gas shortages. This flexibility is necessitated by Egypt’s current gas shortfall, caused by faltering production at a time of growing electricity demand.
MHI says Egypt’s electricity demand is growing at 7-8% a year. South Helwan will be among Egypt’s largest thermal power plants. Construction will begin in May 2016, with start-up of the first generator due in early 2018. Each of the three generating sets will comprise a steam turbine, generator, condenser and auxiliary equipment. Supercritical boilers in turbines enable operating efficiencies up to 45%, compared with 33% for conventional steam turbines. (CONTINUED - 285 WORDS)
