Some Thoughts on Adana Tufanbeyli Thermal Power Plant

Photo- Adana Tufanbeyli plant site- all greenfield

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

Your writer has received press releases from various resources for a new thermal power plant in Adana Tufanbeyli, in Turkey. The new 450 MWe coal fired thermal power plant investment in Adana Tufanbeyli is delayed for 3 years due to prevailing economic crisis. The project will be started in the second half of 2010 which was planned in year 2007 earlier.

The field related hydro geological studies were continuing in the field at Tufanbeyli. Plant is expected to consume 7.2 million tons of nearby local lignite per year, and will generate 3 billion kilowatt - hour of electric energy.

Investor Company officials advised that Negotiation work is in progress with companies of South Korea, Japan, for the key plant equipment supply and the construction. Plant operation will be in compliance with the latest EU environmental rules and regulations.

Local Holding company started planning to construct thermal power plant in 2006 in Adana Tufanbeyli with an investment budget of 480 million dollars. 100 hectares of land expropriation is already completed. Investment will be in build-operate model.

Coal mine has 214 million tons of proven lignite reserves in the region as reported in Turkish Coal Board reports. Available lignite coal has 1350 kcal per kg lower heating value with 44 percent humidity, 26 percent ash, 2.2 percent sulphur in average. Overburden / coal ratio is 8. Coal price is estimated to be 10.53 US Dollars per ton.

Available local coal is too difficult to fire in the steam boiler therefore special care in basic design is necessary. CFB and IGCC designs are recommended in lieu of conventional pulverized coal firing. Coal should be tested upfront.

This basic design activity cannot be left at the mercy of the foreign designers. There is no luxury to leave the design control to the vendor. Investor Company has to have basic design programs and local engineering capability to monitor completely all phases of the project execution from their home offices.

It is reported that investment will create employment for approximately 400 people in the region. Your writer is always happy to get such news on new energy investments in the local energy market, provided that

They are found/ registered/ accepted as environmentally friendly by the Ministry,
They have completed all obligations for Environmental Impact Assessment Reports,
They have received their license from the Local Regulatory Board,
They are designed by local engineering companies,
They are fabricated in the local fabrication plants,
They are installed by our local contractors,
They are commissioned and supervised by our local engineering power,
They are operated by our own staff,
and regularly checked by our own labor force in programmed maintenance.

We understand that project financing is secured by the investor partners, but loan allocation will be delayed to year 2010. Project financing is difficult in Turkey, especially at this time of global financial turmoil. Public institutions have limited or almost no capability.

The good side of that is Turkey will need more local private financing, and local contracting, local engineering. Your writer sincerely feels that our local private investors deserve all our support to complete those new power plant investments.

Above article is to be presumed a sort of executive summary for an important local thermal power plant investment free-of- charge, which would otherwise cost thousands of US dollars if that job would be given to an international engineering consultancy firm.

We will be too pleased to receive your comments.

Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst
http://www.turkishweekly.net/columnist/3210/some-thoughts-on-adana-tufanbeyli-thermal-power-plant.html

Turkey sacks head of state pipeline company Botas

Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:50pm IST,
* Source says will not affect Turkey commitment to Nabucco
* Dismissal over domestic policy - analysts


ANKARA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Turkish government has sacked the head of pipeline operator Botas, a partner in the $11.8 billion Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, according to the Official Gazette on Wednesday.

The state-run newspaper did not provide a reason for Saltuk Duzyol's dismissal, but a Botas source said that Turkey and Botas' commitments were firm to the 31 billion cubic metre pipeline, conceived to ease Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

"The removal of the Botas general manager will in no way impact Turkey's stance concerning Nabucco," a source at Botas said on condition his name not be used.

"Turkey considers Nabucco a major project in the field of energy. Turkey is determined to fulfil all commitments it has undertaken with the July 13 accord," the source said.

Nabucco is in competition with Russian rival South Stream, which is trying to lock in Moscow's share of the gas market. The European Union-backed pipeline, however, is lacking supply commitments, making it a riskier undertaking without necessary political backing.

Duzyol became general manager and chairman at Botas in December 2007 after serving as deputy chairman from 2004, according to Botas' website.

He served through a rocky period in the Nabucco project when Turkey was demanding 15 percent of the line's throughput for domestic use or re-export, which caused major rifts among the Nabucco consortium members. The demand was subsequently dropped.

Botas has played a key role in trying to turn Turkey into an hub for European oil and gas supplies through a series of pipeline projects.

Analysts said his dismissal reflected splits over domestic policy.

"He was not in line with the administration's policies. Regarding certain issues, he was a setback for the ministry," said independent energy analyst Haluk Direskeneli.

"He wanted to keep Botas a powerful player in the (domestic) market and he was against the administration's policy of unbundling of Botas and selling contracts to private gas companies," said Direskeneli.

Turkey is trying to reduce Botas' gas import contracts to 20 percent of the market.

Botas, which imports almost all of Turkey's natural gas from Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan and most of its oil, has struggled to recoup some 10 billion lira ($6.9 billion) it is owed, almost all from state-owned power plants.

Nabucco's other shareholders are OMV (OMVV.VI: Quote, Profile, Research) of Austria, Germany's RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), Hungary's MOL MOLB.BU, Romania's Transgaz TGNM.BX and Bulgaria's Bulgargaz. (by Orhan Coskun, Additional reporting by Thomas Grove and Ayla Jean Yackley; writing by Thomas Grove)

Do we need ILISU hydro electric power plant?

Dear All

PM told to the residents of Hasankeyf and to the nation that he would not allow the 12,000 year old Hasankeyf be buried under water with the building of the Ilısu Dam and Hydro Electric power plant and yet afterwards attended the cermonies for the start of construction of the dam.

Ajda Pekkan gave a concert at Hasankeyf last Sunday pleading for stopping the construction of the dam as presently designed.

Question, do we need ILISU?

ILISU is required for more electricity generation for sure. However is it necessary at that point with that capacity? That is the real question

ILISU could have been constructed a bit earlier with two individual hydroelectric dams instead of one unit , by this way you avoid unnecessary flooding of ancient sites, but that is costlier at this time.  Moreover you generate mush less electricity due to less water height. In future technology will obviously be improved and the construction will be cheaper, financing will be easier. Project could be more bankable.

It is not easy to declare that it is bad or good. You have choices. It is not so easy to judge from the other end of the globe that ILISU is bad.

Although every action we take, every time we move or speak, has some effect on the environment, it is the major effects that must be addressed if we are to act as responsible citizens of an all-too-fragile world.

We should design and supply which does have an appreciable effect on the environment around us. It should be our policy and our concern that any impact on the environment be minimized as best we know how.

We should continue to apply the best technical solutions to these concerns, with maximized local engineering capability and make best use of our local hydro, wind, solar, fossil fuel resources. We will not compromise our designs with inefficient solutions when we know a better way.

We should work with our customers and the community to provide the cleanest, safest, most up to date technology in the equipment that we supply.

We are citizens of this world and intend to act responsibly in it.

--
Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara based Energy Analyst

Kangal Thermal Power Plant rehabilitation

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues

This coal mine, which produces the coal requirements of the Kangal Thermal Power Plant (457 MWe) is located 30 km south of Kangal (Sivas) city center. Coal mine site is licensed to Public Electric Generation Company, and it has been operated by a local private contracting company since 1989 under a 20-year long term agreement.

At the Kalburçayırı section, coal production is still continued in two seams, each at 7 meters thickness on average, the overburden thickness is 42 meters above seam and interburden thickness is 20 meters between seams. The stripping amount of the overburden and interburden is approximately 30m tons per year, for an annual coal production of 6m tons to meet the fuel demands of the Kangal mine mouth thermal power plant.

In Kangal (Sivas) thermal power plant, there is an ongoing rehabilitation order as placed by the Public Electricity Generation Company to the OEM supplier without any competitive tender. We sincerely feel that order- without competitive tender is not a correct decision.

During early construction of the power plant in some years past (1990-1991), we all know that the OEM Company had made many designs, fabrication and operational faults. They were unsolved during commissioning then and hence we had a fast worn-out plant.

Now rehabilitation is unavoidable for smooth, full and efficient operation, and the owner public company had placed order to the original equipment supplier, although their failure was apparent as proven in the past operation.

In this case during rehabilitation, we now observed that the first unit with design capacity at 150 MWe maximum continuous rate (MCR), had not reached the expected capacity but generated only 135 MWe for more than one month.

We have doubts in capacity design and selection of Forced draft fans, induced draft fan, their flow control mechanisms, safety valves, soot blower selections. Fans were oversized, other equipment were undersized in the original design.

We strongly advocate and recommend the Public owner company to hire a local experienced engineering company as the independent owner’s engineer company to monitor, control the rehabilitation order and also make the complete design check prior to and during the whole project execution period.

Kangal thermal plant is in the Sivas province at a far distance where we all forget but expect the plant to generate 3 each 150 MWe electricity for the national grid. We all know that there is a coal supply fraud case in the nearby coal premises whish is still in the local court to be resolved.

It is released that Hungarian by Transelectro and German Siemens companies jointly received the rehabilitation order. The temporary acceptance procedure of the first unit is scheduled to start on 5th October 2009. The second unit rehabilitation is already started. Project execution is expected to be completed in year 2010. Contract was signed in year 2006, for 56.5m Euros. State Planning Organization has allocated 130.2 million TL budget for the overall rehabilitation of the plant. In year 2010, 25 million TL will be spent within that budget. This money is public money. We all have our shares and contributions for the overhaul of the aging thermal power plant. Therefore we have serious questions on the execution of the ongoing rehabilitation work at site,

- We need to know if the owner company has any independent owners engineer company to monitor and control rehabilitation order. Do we have any design check by an independent engineering company prior and during rehabilitation work?

- We need to if the steam boilers are cleaned by pressurized water completely. This procedure is unknown in the local market, but this is common practice in the US power plants in rehabilitation scheme. By water cleaning, you can better locate the wears and tears, and defect equipment.

- We need to know the number of soot blowers (48 each per boiler?), their soot blowing capacities, if their capacities are increased, if they are replaced with new equipment. We know that the original soot blowers were undersized, less in number than required, and hence unable to clean the soots during full load.

- We need to know the names of soot blower suppliers, are they well known international proven brands, or poor quality unknown brands? We need to know if rotary or retractable soot blowers are preferred.

- We need to know if all safety valves are replaced with better capacity new units. We need to know if the new safety valves have better and shorter response time for overpressure to open up to protect the pressured tube walls.

- We need to know if the roof tube walls have proper expansion details during high loads in operation. If they do knot have these expansion compensation details then the walls will be seriously bended or even crashed during operation.

- We need to know the number of fuel oil burners in supplementary firing (originally 6 each per boiler at 2500 kg/hr capacity)? How many burners we have now after rehabilitation, what is their oil burner capacity each? What is their turndown ration?

- We need to know if we can fire the incoming local lignite without any supplementary firing, which is the desirable condition during full loading.

- We need to know if they had any calorific value enrichment of the available coal prior to feeding to coal mills (>990- 1210 kcal/kg LHV, 48% water, 23% ash average). Any mechanical selection and/or water floating?

- We need to know what has been done to upgrade the coal mills (6 each per boiler?)

- We need to know if electrostatic precipitations are replaced with new ones, we know that the original E/P's were undersized and unable to collect the fly ash during operation.

- We need to know the spec details of forced draft fans and induced draft fans, if they work properly during operation, if their air and gas flow control valves can control the operation properly.

- Do we have flue gas desulphurization system in proper continuous operation in the plant? What is the sulphur content in the incoming coal (avg. >1.93%)?

- We need to know if instrumentation and control systems are replaced with new computer controlled internationally approved brands

- We need to know if the high voltage switchyard has been upgrade high voltage transmission lines are overhauled.

- Original Steam turbines were manufactured by Mitsubishi of Japan. So what is the scope of Siemens of Germany in the rehabilitation? What is the reasoning behind this?


We, the local engineers in Chambers of Turkish engineers in Mechanical, Mining, Chemical, Electrical engineering disciplines would be pleased to join in a workshop meeting at the site in near future in order to evaluate the ongoing rehabilitation works and review the site activities. We feel that this is our public responsibility.

We have general elections for the upper management of the Chambers in January- February 2010; therefore the best timing for such a workshop organization in Kangal thermal power plant could be in April- May 2010.

Likewise Sivas Cumhuriyet University, or Kangal power plant administration, or their upper management in the Public Electricity Company may organize such workshop at the site, invites us to the plant and then we all comply with the invitation and participate to put our engineering contributions for the best interest of our national wealth.

Your comments are always welcome

Haluk Direskeneli, Ankara-based independent Energy Analyst
http://www.turkishweekly.net