Technology group Wärtsilä has won a contract to supply a 200 MW flexible baseload power plant to South America. The plant is designed to provide the grid balancing capability that is essential with increasing amounts of intermittent wind and solar power generation entering the power system in the region. At the same time, it will serve as a capacity plant to back up the system in cases of shortage. The company has not disclosed the location of the plant, but says that it is in the northern Andes.
Commercial operation is scheduled to commence at the end of 2021. When operational, the 200 MW plant will supply electricity to the national grid. It will be powered by 11 Wärtsilä 50SG engines running on natural gas. Wärtsilä will supply and install the plant on a full engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) basis, it said.
Gonzalo Granda, Business Development Manager, Wärtsilä Energy said: “This is an important step for Wärtsilä, as we are continuing to expand from our traditional markets in this region to a new key segment: flexible baseload. We are happy to have this customer taking a major step in investing in this project.”
Sampo Suvisaari, Energy Business Director for Latin America North, Wärtsilä Energy said: “We are on a path to a 100 per cent renewable energy future, which means that fast-starting and efficient load following flexibility will be increasingly needed to balance the power systems. It was also remarkable that the construction contract was negotiated remotely from start to finish.”
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