American multinational conglomerate GE has announced the successful rehabilitation of three 9E.03 gas turbines, at three Niger Delta Power Holding Company’s (NDPHC) Power Plants in Calabar and Sapele, Nigeria.
According to a statement from GE, these operations reduced the risk of unplanned downtime of its power generation equipment, enabling the plants to reliably secure and restore the supply of up to 360 megawatts of electricity to the national grid.
GE noted that the restored power capacity is the equivalent electricity needed to power approximately two million Nigerian homes.
The company further noted that despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, GE and NDPHC worked together to swiftly implement safety procedures to ensure a safe and on-time execution.
GE said, “We are dedicated to support power plant operators like NDPHC to be able to provide reliable power with exceptional support and services from GE throughout these uncertain times”
CEO for GE’s Gas Power business Sub-Saharan Africa, Elisee Sezan said, “The successful rehabilitation of the power generations assets at Calabar and Sapele plants will support upsurge the 9E gas turbines’ efficacy, while dropping emissions and providing vital power for industrialization, healthcare facilities, homes, schools and businesses”.
The beneficiary of the project Niger Delta Power Holding Company is Nigeria’s largest electricity generating company, with a total installed capacity of 4.0 gigawatts (GW).
This according to the company’s Managing Director, Chiedu Ugbo represents about 35% of Nigeria’s generating capacity.
Ugbo noted that GE’s efficiency to mobilize local teams on-site with the required technical skills and expertise, as well as GE’s global supply chain scale was crucial to ensure the well-timed and safe accomplishment of the outages at the sites and benefit us to achieve our goal.
The renovation works at the sites involved stage three bucket changeouts on three 9E gas turbines as well as additional combustion inspections.
GE has been collaborating with energy stakeholders to deploy innovative technologies and in 2018, the company celebrated its 100th power plant in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In Africa, GE notes that up to 17 GW of gas power generation on the grid run on GE gas turbines.