Fujairah F3 power project will be the largest natural gas fired GTCC facility in the UAE and the first project in the Middle East utilising Advanced M701JAC model turbines
M701JAC gas turbines for Fujairah F3
Mitsubishi Power, a power solutions brand of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), has shipped a total of three M701JAC gas turbines to the Fujairah F3 power plant in the UAE from its Takasago Machinery Works in Hyogo Prefecture.
The plant will use an efficient combined cycle technology in the region and will be the largest natural gas fired gas turbine combined cycle (GTCC) facility in the UAE, playing a crucial role in the country’s power generation sector, while also contributing to the GCC’s power grid.
The M701JAC is the world’s leading gas turbine with an efficiency greater than 64%, reliability of 99.6%, and the lowest carbon emissions per unit of power when used in combined cycle.
Capable of operating on a mixture of up to 30 percent hydrogen and 70 percent natural gas, the turbines can be increased to 100 percent hydrogen in the future.
These generators will be the core facility for the natural gas-fired GTCC plant, owned and operated by Fujairah Power Company F3 LLC, a special purpose company (SPC) jointly owned by Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and Mubadala Investment Company, as well as Marubeni Corporation and Hokuriku Electric Power Company.
The plant is being built by the South
Korean firm Samsung C&T Corporation.
This shipment comprises a total of three units ordered in 2020, that includes the core facilities of this newly constructed plant, along with auxiliary machinery and accessory equipment.
The JAC-Series gas turbines shipped for this project will be installed in a power generation plant being built in a coastal area of Fujairah (Qidfa), approximately 300km northeast of the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi. The plant will have a generation capacity of 2,400 megawatts (MW), the highest output ever for a gas- fired GTCC plant in the UAE. Full commercial operation is scheduled to commence in 2023.
Mitsubishi Power is also dispatching engineers to provide support until the start of commercial operations, and under a Long-Term Service Agreement (LTSA) for the project, will handle maintenance and repair of the generating facilities.
In June 2021, Mitsubishi Power expanded its operational footprint across EMEA with the establishment of a GTCC EMEA Business Unit headquartered in Dubai, UAE.
Commenting on this shipment, Khalid Salem, president of Mitsubishi Power
MENA (Middle East & North Africa) and
GTCC Business Unit Leader for EMEA, said: “Mitsubishi Power’s core expertise is providing reliable, innovative and environmentally friendly energy solutions to our customers. The establishment of our new business unit earlier this year enabled us to partner more closely across the value chain to offer high quality, reliable solutions that further support the rapid transformation of the region’s power supply and the Fujairah F3 project is testament to that.”
“This project is the first in the Middle
East to utilize our advanced JAC-Series gas turbines. We are pleased that by supplying gas turbines that boast the world’s highest level of generating efficiency,” he added
Mitsubishi Power aims to demonstrate the impact of adopting high-efficiency, environment-friendly GTCC generating facilities, that contributes to the stable supply of power, essential for economic development across the globe.
Six fuel assemblies with uranium-plutonium REMIX fuel rods have been loaded into the VVER-1000 core during the scheduled outage at unit 1 of the Balakovo NPP.
Each REMIX fuel assembly of the standard TVS-2M model contains only fuel rods with a mixture of uranium and plutonium recovered from spent nuclear fuel (312 fuel rods in each bundle).
Earlier in 2021, the trial operation of three experimental fuel assemblies, which included six REMIX fuel rods each, was successfully completed at unit 3 of the Balakovo NPP (in total – three 18 months irradiation cycles).
Such approach fully complies with the global common practice of development and introduction of innovative nuclear fuel. The initial stage usually implies loading of several pilot assemblies with newtype fuel rods (the so-called LTR, or lead test rods programme), then followed by operation of several assemblies consisting of new-type fuel rods only (LTA, or lead test assemblies programme).
“The LTA programme is a prerequisite for commercialization and wider introduction of VVER uranium-plutonium fuel. This will give us the additional data, neccessary for licensing the full refueling, and also the reference experience,” said Alexander Ugryumov,
Vice President for Research, Development and Quality at TVEL Fuel Company.