GE performs gas turbine upgrade at Spanish cogeneration plant

GE has performed a major repowering upgrade of its LM2500-PE gas turbine at Cogen España's Tortosa Energía cogeneration plant in Tarragona, Spain.

The $12.5m Tortosa Energia project altered the existing natural-gas-fueled GE LM2500-PE gas turbine to the more efficient, cleaner and powerful GE LM2500+ DLE model, the company has said.

As a result of the upgrade, GE customers now operates a gas turbine offering higher power output, fewer emissions and greater energy efficiency. The company has also increased the power output from 26MW to 29 at 37% efficiency.

The plant's control system, which GE upgraded last year, had no changes to main structural items and the existing foundations were reused.

As a result, the outage minimised power-supply disruptions to Cogen España's customer Ercros, Spain's leading domestic non-petrochemical chemical company.

The project, known as 'repowering-in-place', enables Tortosa Energia to qualify for ten years of cogeneration feed-in tariff, while following with the latest environmental requirements and positioning the plant for future growth as well.

Cogen energia operations director Jaime Igea said the company aims to modernise the plant while minimising service disruptions to its very important customers.

"GE's advanced technology and engineering expertise was essential to the speed and success of this project," said Igea. "We are now better positioned to provide clean, efficient power to support the Tarragona region's energy needs in the coming years."

Darryl Wilson, GE's aeroderivative gas turbines president and CEO, said the Tortosa Energy repowering is an example of how GE's technology and service experience ean help Spain modernize power generation equipment efficiently and cost-efficiently, even in the current economic climate.