OREANDA-NEWS. GE’s Power Services (NYSE: GE) business today announced the completion of a gas turbine upgrade project in Oregon at a time when U.S. utilities continue to increase the efficiency and flexibility of their older combined-cycle power fleets. The project with Avista’s Coyote Springs Power Generation Facility comes as today’s power plants need to be able to respond more quickly to changing energy demands to improve local grid reliability.

“This upgrade project was a crucial part of our commitment to continue providing reliable supplies of energy to our customers in the Pacific Northwest,” said Jason Thackston, Avista’s senior vice president of energy resources. “This upgrade project made sense because a more flexible combined-cycle plant allows us to better respond to increased energy demands during the winter months and support regional grid stability. Increasing the capacity of our existing facilities also reduces the urgency to build new generating capacity in the region.”

For Washington-state utility Avista, GE’s Power Services business upgraded the utility’s 280-megawatt (MW) Coyote Springs Power Generation Facility Unit 2 in Boardman, Oregon, which produces enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 210,000 homes. The utility installed GE’s Advanced Gas Path (AGP) and Dry Low NOx 2.6+ (DLN2.6+) combustion technologies and increased the plant’s flexibility, plant capacity by 18 MW in combined-cycle mode and fuel efficiency by 1.56 percent, helping the plant to more effectively meet winter capacity challenges. Avista also extended its existing multiyear service agreement with GE.

“We are pleased to be able to provide our advanced gas turbine technologies and services to our long-time customer, Avista, to boost the performance and efficiency of their existing power plant,” said Caroline Reda, vice president of North America for GE’s Power Services business. “Highlighting a growing trend with North American combined-cycle power stations, GE offers utilities like Avista total plant life cycle solutions that will help reduce startup times, lower emissions and increase the output and efficiency of the power station.”

GE’s proven AGP technology contributes to the improved durability of the gas turbine equipment and extends maintenance intervals from three to four years, which will help improve Avista’s competitiveness by reducing operational costs and shorten downtime for maintenance. The DLN2.6+ combustion system is helping Avista to improve Coyote Springs’s flexibility without using additional water in the process.

The project is the latest in a series of combined-cycle upgrade projects for GE’s Power Services business in North America. GE recently announced that Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN), a leading independent power producer with 35 power stations in eight states across the competitive power generation sector, is installing GE hardware and software equipment to upgrade and modernize four of its power plants—three of which the company recently purchased. Dynegy is upgrading the plants to enhance their reliability and increase their output by a total of 210 MW, thereby potentially boosting the IPP’s revenue. 

For the Dynegy projects, GE is supplying a total of eight sets of AGP upgrades and GE’s OpFlex* Peak Fire software for the fleet of 7FA.03 gas turbines at Dynegy’s Hanging Rock Energy Facility and Washington Energy Facility in Ohio and the Fayette Energy Facility in Pennsylvania. In addition to those recently acquired stations, Dynegy also is upgrading its Independence Energy Facility in Oswego, New York, with four sets of AGP hardware to boost output and enhancing compressor performance and reliability through the installation of new compressors and stators. 

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