Abener and Morocco’s Office National d’Électricité (ONE) has awarded Alstom a EUR160 million contract to supply equipment to the Aïn Béni Mathar integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) power plant, the first of its kind in the world.
The Aïn Béni Mathar plant will generate around 470 MW, 20 MW of which will come from energy collected in a 183 000 sq m solar field with cylindro-parabolic mirror technology. The project has received a $43 million credit from the World Bank for solar development.
Alstom will supply two GT13E2 gas turbines, one Comax steam turbine and three Topair air cooled generators to the plant, and will also provide operation support and maintenance for 21 years under a service contract.
One of the key challenges of ISCC configurations is flexibility, as the plant must be able to perform under varying ambient conditions and changing power input from the solar cycle.
In an ISCC cycle, the water used in the solar system steam generator boiler is obtained from the economizers of the combined cycle plant’s HRSGs, and the steam generated by the solar field is injected in the HRSG’s superheaters. Steam generated by the solar field is expanded in the same steam turbine that exploits the exhaust heat of the gas turbines, so electrical power is increased.
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