Wärtsilä to supply Australian mining site with 53 MW gas power plant expansion

Wärtsilä has been contracted to supply the equipment for a gas engine based expansion to the McArthur River zinc mine power plant in Australia’s Northern Territory. The project is being undertaken by EDL NGD (NT) Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the international energy company, Energy Developments Ltd (EDL), who will sell the electricity generated by the plant to McArthur River Mining Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Xstrata plc, the international mining resources company.

Wärtsilä’s scope of supply includes six Wärtsilä 34SG engines running on natural gas and the related engineering services. The total combined output of the engines will be 53 MW. Delivery is scheduled to be completed by early 2013, and the power plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2013.

"Wärtsilä has an established track record of delivering high quality, and EDL was impressed by Wärtsilä’s proposal to supply an efficient power plant solution on a fast-track basis. This was an important consideration in choosing Wärtsilä as our engine supplier for this project," says Mr Shane McLaughlin, EDL Executive General Manager, Project Delivery.

“In meeting the plant’s operational requirements of a flexible and efficient supply with a high step load capacity, we have also demonstrated our ability to meet the customer’s needs for a rapid delivery,” commented Suraj Narayan, General Manager, Wärtsilä Power Plants in Australia & Oceania. “Furthermore, apart from their minimal environmental impact, the Wärtsilä gas fired generating sets have a low total lifecycle cost, which is an increasingly important aspect of modern power plant operations.”

The Wärtsilä 34SG is a four-stroke, spark-ignited gas engine that works according to the Otto process and the lean-burn principle. The efficiency of the Wärtsilä 34SG is the highest of any spark-ignited gas engine currently available. The gas fuelled, lean-burn, medium-speed engine is a reliable, highly efficient and flexible power source for baseload, intermediate, peaking, and cogeneration plants. The high efficiency of the engine is based on state-of-the-art technology.