OREANDA-NEWS.  Oilfield technology company Evolution Well Services has selected GE’s (NYSE: GE) trailer-mounted, TM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbine for a milestone on-site power project in Canada. The project will demonstrate the mobile natural gas technology’s emissions-reduction and operational efficiency advantages over conventional diesel engines for hydraulic fracturing in unconventional gas fields. GE made the announcement at Evolution Well Services’ Hybrid Powered Fracturing Event held today in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

Based in Calgary, Evolution Well Services is an oilfield technology company that provides mobile, modular, electric-powered high-pressure pumping systems for use in hydraulic fracturing. The company recently signed a three-year rental contract with GE to use the 25-megawatt (MW) TM2500+ unit to generate on-site power—first at a demonstration project near Calgary and then to support commercial operations in Alberta and British Columbia.

Known throughout the global power industry as the “power plant on wheels,” the TM2500+ provides fast, flexible distributed power by combining high efficiency and fuel flexibility, coupled with lower emissions in both the 50- and 60-hertz segments.

“We selected the TM2500+because it provides a mobile, natural gas-fueled power generation source for a new method of hydraulic fracturing that eliminates the use of diesel engines, resulting in lower emissions and lower operating costs, in terms of fuel savings and field personnel, as well as a reduced footprint at many of the well sites that we’ll be working,” said Eldon Schelske, president, Evolution Well Services.

“Evolution Well Services’ selection of our TM2500+ aeroderivative gas turbine reflects a growing trend within the global oil and gas industry to deploy more efficient and cleaner on-site power solutions that make unconventional oil and gas projects more economically and environmentally viable,” said Lance Hall, general manager, PowerXpand—aeroderivative gas turbines for GE Power & Water.

The unconventional gas industry is growing quickly and is expected to invest more than USD 40-USD 60 billion annually over the next six years in North America alone. By 2035, unconventional gas production is expected to account for 35 percent of the world’s increased supply of energy.

GE’s unconventional resources solutions—consisting of more than 40 technologies from across the GE portfolio—are addressing fundamental industry challenges, helping customers to improve operational performance, reduce their environmental footprint, increase resource recovery and drive demand for natural gas.