OREANDA-NEWS. On June 09, 2007 during the 11th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Chairman of the Management Board of RAO "UES of Russia" Anatoly Chubais and Director General of NPO Saturn Yury Lastochkin signed a Cooperation Agreement designed to facilitate serial production and broad application of the GTE-110 modern gas turbine units, reported the press-centre of  RAO "UES of Russia".

According to the Agreement, it is necessary to accelerate implementation of Russian-made gas turbine technology in order to ensure energy safety and improve operational efficiency of the energy system.

The Agreement provides that NPO Saturn will start mass production of TGC-110 gas turbine units, which will be used in the generation capacity building projects under the RAO UES five-year investment programme for 2006-2011. These turbines are the core element of the highly efficient PGU-325 combine-cycle power units, which are intended to replace the 200-300 MW steam power units widely used in the UES of Russia. Such replacement will raise the efficiency of generation units from 35-38 percent to 51 percent and reduce gas consumption by 30 percent.

Moreover, in the preparation of the investment programmes, these power units will be used to modernize the country's 400-plus combined heat and power plants (CHPPs), which will increase their fuel efficiency to 75-82 percent.

The Russian-made PGU-325 combined-cycle gas turbines using high-performance gas turbines GTE-110 manufactured by NPO Saturn will be installed at the Ivanovskaya TPP. The first 325 MW unit is scheduled to go on line in 2007, with the second unit to become operational in 2009.

According to the five-year Investment Programme of RAO "UES of Russia" for the period until 2011, twelve GTE-110 gas turbine units will be installed under the projects to build new and modernize the existing power units at the Ivanovskaya TPP, the TPP-24 of OAO "WGC-6", the CHPP-12 of OAO "Mosenergo", and the Nizhegorodskaya CHPP.

NPO Saturn undertakes to ensure further development of the scientific and technological basis for the manufacture of GTE-110 units which compete favourably with other turbines in the class.
NPO Saturn will also provide repair and maintenance services for GTE-110 units throughout their life cycle. For this purpose, NPO Saturn will produce and agree with RAO "UES of Russia" a repair and maintenance programme which will include a guaranteed quantity of spare parts and the possibility of supplying customers with a reserve GTE-110 unit for the period of long-term repair works.

RAO "UES of Russia" backed the initiative of NPO Saturn to create on its basis a EPCM General Contractor to implement turnkey projects to implement combine-cycle units manufactured by NPO Saturn at various energy facilities.