GE clinches $60mln coal power plant deal

ISLAMABAD: US-based digital industrial firm General Electric clinched a $60 million of deal to provide advanced boiler technology and post-purchase services to a 330-megawatt coal-fired power project in Thar district.

GE announced the agreement on Wednesday under which it will provide its advanced circulating fluidised bed boiler and its steam turbine generator technology to Thar Energy Limited (TEL) power plant, which is owned by Thar Energy Limited. Lignite coal contains up to 50 percent moisture and low ash content, making it significantly challenging to burn reliably.

Thar Energy is a consortium of Hub Power Company Limited (Hubco), Fauji Fertilizer Limited and China Machinery and Engineering Corporation.

The power plant will use local lignite coal from the Thar Block II mine and supply power to the national grid under a 30-year power purchase agreement. The 330 MW TEL power plant is expected to commence commercial operations in March 2021.

TEL is a part of the larger 1,320 megawatts (four 330 MW power plants) integrated-mining and power plant plan under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor program. Under the agreement, GE will provide critical services to support maintenance outages, including the supply of spare parts, on-site inspections and advisory services for improved operations of both the boiler and steam turbine generator at the TEL power plant for 12 years.

GE’s boiler technology has a successful track record of burning similarly challenging fuels in Europe and North America. Pakistan has about 180 billion tons of lignite reserves and GE’s technology can help the country use the indigenous resource instead of importing more expensive fuels to increase energy independence and save foreign exchange reserves.

GE and Hub Power Services Limited – a wholly owned subsidiary of Hubco – also signed a broader operations and maintenance (O&M) collaboration agreement under which the two companies intend to explore opportunities to jointly provide O&M services to coal-fired power plants in Pakistan and the Middle East and North Africa region.

Khalid Mansoor, chief executive officer of Hubco said GE technology has demonstrated its long-term efficiency and reliability using similar fuels internationally.