GE (NYSE: GE) today announced it has secured a H-Class gas turbine order from Eneva, the largest private natural gas operator in Brazil to support the energy transition and enhance renewable energy growth in the country. GE will supply a 7HA.02 gas turbine for Eneva’s new Azulão reserve power plant to help stabilize the grid.
“The use of renewable energy sources is continuously being expanded in many countries around the world, but the grid infrastructure still requires highly efficient gas turbine technology to stabilize and support these variable technologies,” said Eric Gray, President and CEO of GE Gas Power. “Rapid renewable energy growth presents system operators and energy providers with the increasingly difficult task of continuously ensuring stability of the grid and a reliable power supply. GE’s H-Class gas turbine technology has earned a reputation for flexibility, output, environmental performance and high efficiency that has led to its rapid growth and maturation as a fleet worldwide, and we’re honored to add a new customer to our HA fleet.”
Eneva’s Azulão power plant, Brazil
For the new 350-Megawatt (MW) Azulão power plant, GE will provide a GE 7HA.02 gas turbine powering a H65 generator to give Brazil extra flexibility to manage its renewable-rich grid and its growing utilization of non-dispatchable energy sources. The country counts on approximately 70% of its power generation from renewable energy and this plant will help support the grow of intermittent power from hydro (without reservoirs), solar and wind resources. According to the National Grid Operator, wind and solar generation will grow from 15.6% (27.8GW) in 2022 to 21.1% (42.1GW) in 2026 of the grid’s total installed capacity.
The construction of the new reserve power plant, located near Manaus, will start in late 2022, targeting the start of commercial operation by 2026. The installed capacity will be available to the National Grid Operator to help ensure grid stability with high efficiency. In addition, the increased power available on the open electricity marketplace could help reduce average cost of electricity in the country.
Eneva trusted GE’s advanced HA technology and turned to GE based on a longtime collaboration between the two companies, built on more than half a dozen of GE 7F gas turbines reliably powering Eneva’s power plants across Brazil for almost a decade.
In Brazil, Eneva owns and operates a 1.9 GW-generation complex integrated to proprietary gas production. Expanding the use of natural gas will support Eneva’s continuous investment in renewable energy: the company is now in the Brazilian renewables industry with the recent acquisition of Focus Energia. The carbon footprint of Eneva’s power generation portfolio will drop significantly as this new capacity becomes operational, with coal power plants targeted to be phased out by 2040.
GE’s H-Class gas turbine technology is the most responsive and flexible in the industry. It has also set combined cycle efficiency records at both 50 Hz and at 60 Hz and is engineered to reduce carbon emissions below those emitted by prior gas turbines.
GE has a longstanding presence of 100 years in Brazil. GE equipment helps power approximately 30% of the energy produced in Brazil and about one-third of all energy generated throughout Latin America.
