Alstom has announced the handover of the 1.2 GW Shoaiba III steam power plant to the Saudi Electricity Company following completion of the project's final unit. Shoaiba III will help Saudi Arabia meet the rising demand for electricity across the kingdom as its economy expands through industrialisation and urbanisation.
Consisting of three individual 400 MW blocks, the Shoaiba III plant began in September 2008 and has been built around Alstom's STF40 steam turbines and GIGATOP 2-pole turbogenerators. To meet stringent Saudi environmental regulations it also utilises Alstom's environmental control systems. A seawater flue gas desulphurisation (SWFGD) system cuts emissions by using brine to strip oxides of sulphur from the flue gas, while low-NOx tangential firing technology employed in the boilers mitigates nitrogen oxides. Plant control is through the most recent version of the company’s ALSPA system.
Located on the Red Sea coast 100 km south of Jeddah, Shoaiba III is part of the giant Shoaiba facility, which now has a capacity of 5600 MW supplied by its fourteen units. Not just the largest power plant in the kingdom but also the biggest in the whole region, Shoaiba has become known as 'the Giant of the Middle East'. It’s completion follows thirteen years of collaboration between Alstom and SEC.
An Alstom-led consortium with support from locally-based contractor Saudi Archirodon executed the three-stage Shoaiba project on a turnkey basis, with the company designing, supplying, installing and commissioning all aspects of the complex. The first contract was signed in 1998, and the initial phase of work on Shoaiba I was completed in August 2002 with three units entering commercial operation a total of 107 days ahead of schedule. The pattern was repeated as Shoaiba II and III were delivered ahead of schedule, and twelve out of fourteen units completed early.
Linkedin
