Adding value to an existing service agreement, GE’s Power Services business has announced that it will help GAMA Enerji A.Ş. (GAMA Enerji) to reduce fuel costs and improve power generation asset reliability and visibility at its İçanadolu Doğal Gaz Elektrik Üretim Ve Ticaret A.Ş.(ICAN) power plant in Turkey using a variety of digital solutions. The benefits realised from the power plant’s improved fuel savings will be shared between the two companies. This marks the first time that GE has implemented its Outcome-as-a-Service (OaaS) model, which is part of a 20-year agreement, in Turkey.
“When generating power, fuel expenses account for over 80% of costs,” said Graham Traynor, Assistant Managing Director responsible for execution and operations with GAMA Enerji. “Because power plants rely on an immense, consistent supply of fuel, even the slightest improvement in efficiency and reduction in usage can result in significant cost savings. Given our history of working together with GE, we co-developed a plan to help improve our operations in a way that benefits both companies financially. It is a true win-win scenario for all parties involved.”
The project is the result of GE and GAMA Enerji working together to reconfigure an existing multiyear service agreement to benefit both companies. With the new agreement, GAMA Enerji will install and deploy GE’s Asset Strategy Optimization solution and will also extend the scope of its implementation of GE’s Asset Performance Management (APM) software suite. The project, which includes balance of plant equipment, will provide added reliability and visibility of asset performance, enabling better, clearer and faster predictive maintenance and condition monitoring on the plant’s two GE 9FB gas turbines.
“Power producers around the globe are constantly looking for ways to reduce operating costs, whether it be through reduced fuel consumption, improved efficiency or an array of other methods,” said Michael Rechsteiner, Vice President of GE’s Power Services business in Europe. “Our solutions are not only helping GAMA Enerji to achieve lower fuel costs, but we are also guaranteeing improvements in efficiency according to key performance indicators (KPIs) identified by GAMA Enerji through this OaaS model approach.
In addition, GAMA Enerji will implement GE’s Plant Optimization-Efficiency solution at its ICAN combined-cycle power plant to drive improvements in fuel savings as part of a risk-shared business model. With this software, there is a continuous orchestration of plant operations across ambient heat conditions and megawatt (MW) targets, which results in lower heat rates that help reduce fuel consumption and lead to fuel savings.
Combined with the APM software solution suite, GE will provide a flexible program of gas turbine parts inspections, flexible maintenance intervals and better availability guarantees. These improvements, which boost the reliability of power generating machines, can reduce unplanned downtime by up to 5 percent, decrease false alerts by up to 75 percent and improve operations and maintenance costs by up to 25 percent.
GAMA Enerji’s ICAN combined-cycle power plant has an installed power capacity of 853 MW and consists of two 286.5-MW GE 9FB.05 gas turbines and one 280-MW GE D11 steam turbine. The facility generates, on average, approximately 6,300 gigawatt-hours of electricity, annually.
