OREANDA-NEWS. GE’s Power Services business (NYSE: GE) today announced it has secured orders valued approximately at €40 million with PGE Gornictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna S.A. (PGE GiEK S.A.), the largest utility in Poland, to upgrade generator and steam turbine assets at the Turow Power Plant. The upgrades will result in a combined 45-megawatt (MW) output increase, which is the equivalent of powering about 130,000 Polish households.

“We are happy to once again work with GE in modernizing the Turow Power Plant to increase the power output of our power generation assets,” said Slawomir Zawada, president of PGE GiEK S.A. “This project is extremely important for the power complex in Turow as well as for the local community: a lifetime extension, by 150,000 hours, of key equipment will allow us to utilize deposits of lignite from the Turow mine and simultaneously will help to secure current employment.”

Under the terms of the agreement with PGE GiEK S.A., GE will upgrade three 50WT20H-100 generators and three 13CK230 steam turbines to extend equipment lifetime by at least 150,000 hours—about 20 years—and increase the availability of the turbosets to 97 percent in the first year of operation and above 98 percent in the next year. The upgrade is expected to increase power output by 45 MW and improve power plant efficiency by approximately 1.4 percent.

“GE has a very collaborative relationship with PGE GiEK S.A. and recently provided wind turbines for both the Karwice Wind Farm and the Lotnisko Wind Farm. We are pleased that PGE Gornictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna S.A. again has chosen to work with our GE team to support the needs of our communities here in Poland. Through this project we are able to participate in the developing of a diversified mix of energy sources of the Polish energy sector,” said Beata Stelmach, president of GE in Poland.

The upgrade of the generator rotors and the manufacturing of new rods will take place in GE’s generator factory in Wroclaw, Poland. The steam turbine upgrade includes the delivery of new HP, IP and LP turbine inner modules, which will be manufactured in GE’s turbine factory in Elblag, Poland. 


The upgrade is scheduled to begin with the shutdown of the first unit in April 2017, and the commissioning of the last unit is scheduled for January 2020.