TEPCO, Japan’s largest electric utility, has selected GE (NYSE: GE) to completely replace and upgrade the components of eight gas turbines ranging from 9FA.01 to 9FA.03 models at its Yokohama Thermal Power Station.
In late 2012, TEPCO publicly requested an “Alliance Proposal” to openly receive innovative solutions. In response to the request, GE submitted a package of solutions to help TEPCO save on fuel and life cycle costs and set out to find a cost-effective way to upgrade its existing power infrastructure. As a result of selecting GE for the Yokahama upgrade project, TEPCO expects to reduce its fuel costs as well as its operational costs by reducing the length of time needed for service outages.
This flange-to-flange replacement project is the largest scale project for GE’s Power Generation Services business in Japan and is expected to result in a 7 percent output increase per unit, a combined output increase of 27 megawatts and a 1 percent increase in overall power plant efficiency.
As a result of this replacement project, the station’s annual fuel costs would be reduced up to 1 billion yen (approximately US $8 million) while approximately 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions per unit also would be reduced.
The replacement solution includes gas turbines, combustion systems and control systems, and each unit will be constructed at the site when the gas turbine is replaced. In fact, the first implementation already began in May 2015 and completed installation on July 31.
“We appreciate it very much that TEPCO evaluated GE’s unique maintenance program, which GE has been invested continuously to pursue improvement of existing units. It increases output and reduces emission gas as well, due to a huge scale of upgrading to high-efficiency gas turbines,” said Ramesh Singaram, president of Power Generation, Asia Pacific, GE Power & Water.
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