ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won orders from Ansaldo Energia, Italy's largest supplier, installer and service provider for power generation plants and components, to supply a plant automation system and substation expansion for the new Ain Djasser III gas-fired power plant in the northern province of Batna, Algeria. The plant is operated by Sociéte Algérienne de Production de l'Electricité, Algeria's largest power generation company.
ABB will provide a distributed control system for the 340 megawatt (MW) (in ISO conditions) open cycle power plant based on the Symphony ® Plus total plant automation platform. The solution includes the platform's intuitive and easy-to-use S+ Operations human machine interface and a Symphony Harmony rack I/O (Input/Output) based turbine control system.
ABB and Ansaldo Energia have a long-standing relationship. In Algeria alone Ansaldo Energia has provided the gas turbines and ABB the control systems for more than 4,400 MW of power generation. This is equivalent to around 30 percent of the country's total power generation capacity. It includes Ain Djasser I and II, the two other 340 MW plants in the Ain Djasser complex, which Ansaldo Energia and ABB supplied and commissioned in 2010 and 2014 respectively.
In a separate contract, Ansaldo Energia selected ABB to expand the 220 kilovolt (kV) air-insulated substation that feeds the power produced by the Ain Djasser plants into the Algerian transmission grid. ABB supplied the original substation in 2008 and will expand it to cope with the large increase in power when the third plant starts production. The solution includes a wide range of high voltage products, as well as substation protection and control. ABB is responsible for the design, engineering, supply, and commissioning of both orders, and will execute them on a fast-track basis to enable the plant to start producing energy as early as 2016.
"ABB is delighted to partner Ansaldo Energia in this important energy project," said Massimo Danieli, head of ABB's global power generation business, part of the company's Power Systems division. "We are pleased to contribute once again to the building of Algeria's power infrastructure."
Ain Djasser 3 is part of a large-scale investment program that the country's public utility Sonelgaz (of which Sociéte Algérienne de Production de l'Electricité is a subsidiary), is pursuing to almost double electricity generation within the next three to four years. Algeria's power consumption has been increasing by about 10 percent annually in recent years.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility, industry, and transport and infrastructure customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly 100 countries and employs about 145,000 people.
