Mitsubishi turbines for coal-to-gas conversion

Mitsubishi Power said it received an order for two M501JAC gas turbines for a Canadian power plant as part of a move from coal to natural gas.

The turbines will be installed in Units 1 and 2 of the Genesee Power Plant in Alberta owned by Canadian power generation company Capital Power.

Located west of Edmonton near Warburg, Alberta, the Genesee Generating Station consists of Units 1, 2 and 3 which provide over 1300 MW of baseload generation. Genesee Units 1 & 2 and Genesee Unit 3 are undergoing repowering and coal-to-gas transformations respectively to move off coal.

These power generation facilities are scheduled to start operation in 2023 for Unit 1 and in 2024 for Unit 2, and will supply a total of 1360 MW of electricity. The repowering project involves installing the new gas-fired turbines and heat recovery steam generators, while using the existing steam turbine generators. With the introduction of the GTCC system, the conversion of fuel from coal to natural gas at the power plant will bring CO2 emissions below Alberta’s Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction regulation (TIER), the company said.

The M501JAC gas turbine is equipped with hydrogen co-firing technology that supports decarbonization, Mitsubishi said. In the future, it will be possible to switch to hydrogen-only combustion and reduce CO2 emissions to zero, which will cancel out carbon (CO2) emissions and absorption as one of Canada’s cleanest large-scale thermal power plants.

“We are pursuing a strategy for a low-carbon future with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” said Brian Vaasjo, president and CEO of Capital Power. “At Genesee Power Plant Units 1 and 2, which use Mitsubishi Power’s power generation technology, we will start from coal. The refueling will reduce annual CO2 emissions by 3.4 million tons, which will be an important position for further carbon emission reductions in the future.”

Capital Power plans to add approximately 2602 MW of solar and wind energy by 2022, adding more renewable energy resources in Alberta with the introduction of M501JAC gas turbine.