The Best 10 Thermal Power Plants in Turkey

Photo. SeyitOmer Thermal Power Plant,
One of 10 Best in Turkey

Dear Colleagues,

In Energy Commission of Chamber of Mechanical engineers in Ankara Branch, we meet every two weeks on Monday evening in our Ankara office in order to review current energy issues, and try to make appropriate programs/ panels/ technical excursions.

Earlier we had following conversation at the end of our regular agenda. In our country we are just pointing the negative issues. We need to point out the positive developments. We should be more proactive.

There are good developments. There are good power plants/organizations, running smoothly, generating power with high efficiency, at high availability rates. We need to review them and appreciate their performance and advise them to be good examples to continue.

In our draft 2007 technical excursion program, we decided to list them and invite our colleagues as well as students to visit these selected sites, review the operations, write down reports

Here are our best 10 successful thermal power plants we planned to visit in 2007

BAYMINA- Temelli, Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 55km west of Ankara. 770 Mwe, 2 each GE Frame 9F gas turbine, CMI licensed Gulermak fabricated 2 each Forced Circulation HRSG with supplementary firing, 1 each 300 Mwe Alstom steam turbine. High efficiency latest technology turbines, high availability, further water treatment on downstream of Ankara Creek. Plant is visited on 22nd February 2007.

AYEN Enerji- OSTIM Ankara, Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 41 Mwe, 1 each GE LM2500 gas turbine, Allborg licensed Enka/Cimtas fabricated, 1 each Forced circulation HRSG with supplementary firing. Further utilization of municipality refuse land. Plant is visited on 3rd March 2007

ZORLU Enerji- Sincan OSB Ankara, Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 60 Mwe, 1 each GE LM6000 gas turbine, Allborg licensed Enka/Cimtas, fabricated 1 each Forced circulation HRSG with supplementary firing . Plant tour is scheduled on 15th March 2007.

SeyitOmer Thermal Power Plant- 4th Unit, Thermal/ Lignite firing/ Public (EUAS) Ownership, 165 MWe Owned by EUAS. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of local mine mouth lignite. We planned the plant visit on 14/15 April 2007.

Cayirhan Thermal Power Plant- Thermal/ Lignite firing/ Private Ownership. 4x165 Mwe. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of local mine mouth lignite. We applied for management permission for plant visit. We applied for management permission for plant visit in May 2007.

EnerjiSA KentSA IZMIT. Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 120 Mwe, 2 each GE Fr.6B gas turbine, DESA and BWG locally fabricated 2 each Natural circulation unfired HRSGs, plus steam Turbine. Plant visit will be scheduled. Permission will be requested soon.

Entek Bursa. Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 50 Mwe, 1 each GE LM6000 plus 1 each GE LM2500 gas turbines, locally fabricated (1+1) each Natural circulation unfired HRSGs, plus steam Turbine.

Eregli Iron & Steel Mills. 5th Steam Generation unit, Thermal/ low LHV Blast Furnace gas firing/ Private Ownership. High efficiency and high availability reported. Excellent utilization of BFG and CO gas.

Adapazari- Gebze ENKA. 770+1540 Mwe Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, Plant visit is scheduled. Permission from management will be requested soon.

AkEnerji Bozuyuk Thermal/ Combined cycle power plant/ Natural gas/ Private ownership, 120 Mwe, 2 each GE Fr.6B plus locally fabricated 2 each Natural circulation unfired HRSGs, plus steam Turbine.

Above specs are tentative and they could be revised with your assistance in time.

We would like to visit our selection of the best 10 thermal power plants of Turkey in year 2007 and further plan to write technical articles to explain these excellent thermal power plants in our month bulletin.

We have lignite coal as our biggest fuel source and we all agree that we should use that coal

with maximum efficiency and availability,
with minimum harm to the mother nature,
with minimum impact on global warming.

The world has a lot of coal, but right now carbon capture and sequestration is not commercially viable, and no guarantee it will be in the future.

Solar and wind plants have long term availability problem.

Natural gas has national security implications and does emit CO2 which creates global warming.

The primary energy sources for new capacity and energy efficiency measures need to be chosen using some kind of quantitative risk-assessment scheme that most likely will result in a diverse energy mix that includes nuclear.

We are really not sure how to get around/adapt to the global climate change problem without some drastic changes, even if nuclear energy is implemented.

Hopefully someone will win Sir Richard Branson’s $25 million prize for developing a technology to cost effectively remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Join me in a toast to the Turkish Thermal Power Plant industry as we sing a couple of lines of that Sinatra classic:

“...You think you’ve seen the sun, but you ain’t seen it shine; You ain’t seen nothing yet, the best is yet to come, and babe, it’ll be fine...”

Your comments are always welcome.