Npower has announced that RWE Generation is to rebuild once of its crucial gas turbines from its Great Yarmouth power plant. The turbine measures 10 meters long, 3 meters in diameter and it has a 90 ton rotor. The turbine has been shipped to France where manufacturers GE will begin work on the rotor.
A team transported the gas turbine to Antwerp via a 46 wheel trailer; it made the final part of the journey on a barge. A team at the Ferrybridge workshop had been working together to repair the damaged turbine after it received significant damage earlier in 2014.
The turbine, which can power more than a third of a million homes, was damaged earlier this year after a fault occurred in March. The fault was due to one of the turbine blades failing, which in turn caused damage to the compressor blade.
As a result of the damage to the turbine, the Great Yarmouth power plant was forced to close and it still remains shut. A team has been put in place to ensure that this type of fault doesn’t occur again and they are working on a “cost saving” plan to enable RWE Generation to get the power station working again.
Commenting in a press release, Kevin Nix, Head of RWE Generation UK, said:
“It has been a very difficult couple of months and I would like to thank everyone at the power station and RWE Generation Maintenance Outage Support in Ferrybridge who have worked together on finding a cost effective solution.”
Once the rotor has been fully repaired it will be shipped back to the UK from the GE workshop in France. It is expected that it will be back at the power plant in October and a team from RWE Generation Maintenance Outage Support will work to reinstall it.
In a press release, Distributed Assets Group Manager Kerry Nesbitt said:
“We are working hard at a return of the plant to commercial operation on time and on budget for the autumn clock change.”
The station in Great Yarmouth was first commissioned in 2002 and it can produce 400 megawatts of electricity. Npower says that the plant in Great Yarmouth is one of the country’s most modern power stations. According to the team at Npower, the station has the ability to respond to ever changing energy demands, as well as being energy efficient and flexible.