ENKA was awarded a contract by Mass Group Holding Ltd. (MGH) to convert the existing power plant, 20 kilometers south of the city of Erbil in Iraq from simple cycle to combined cycle technology.

The existing simple cycle plant was developed by MGH using eight GE-9E gas turbines with a total capacity of 1,000 MW. Two GE steam turbines were used to convert the plant into a combined cycle power plant with additional capacity of 500 MW.

The facility is designed for baseload operations with an efficient operating life of 30 years. The existing simple cycle power plant was designed to work with natural gas as the primary fuel source and diesel as the secondary fuel source. While converting the plant to combined cycle technology, all the necessary arrangements were made accordingly.

The Erbil Combined Cycle Power Plant is capable of any combination of baseload operation throughout the service life period for which it was designed. A direct air cooled condenser (ACC) system is used for the cooling system, which consists of two blocks, each with approximately 40 cells. The scope of works under the contract also included a 400 kV AIS switchyard for which the interconnection point is a dead-end structure erected by the Ministry of Electricity.

The project consists of conversion of live simple cycle plant to a combined cycle plant project under brown field conditions.

ENKA worked under unstable grid conditions and successfully managed to minimize the negative impacts of the grid on the power plant by implementing tailor-designed control.

During the last quarter of the project execution, ENKA worked under significant civil instability and terror activity in the region without interruption and with no effect to contract schedule. ENKA prepared and organized an ever ready evacuation plan by minimizing the potential risk factors.

The US based engineering subcontractor could not send their engineers to the site due to the security concerns. By organizing regular video conferences ENKA kept the designers up to date and involved in the site day-to-day activities. Another challenge was to obtain residency permits, which took more time than originally anticipated.

Logistics was also one of the major challenges of the project, including not only the delays and obstacles in transportation due to force majeure events near the Turkish – Iraqi border but also the frequently changing Iraqi Customs regulations was also successfully managed with no effect to contract schedule and 51 thousand tons of project materials and equipment has been brought to the site.

The major areas of work envisaged in the contract were the design and engineering, procurement, installation, start-up and commissioning of eight heat recovery steam generators (HRSG), two steam turbine generators (STG) each nominally rated 250 MW, two generator step-up transformers (GSU) and all other equipment needed to convert the simple cycle plant into a 4x4x1, two-block configuration combined cycle plant, together with all related civil works and erection works. In addition to these works, the contract called for a demonstration of parallel operation for the grid at the required net output level. ENKA was also responsible for performance tests, classroom training of the operating and maintenance (O&M) personnel and the preparation of integrated O&M manuals.

• “First Conversion Project from Simple Cycle to Combined Cycle” in Iraq
• “First Combined Cycle Power Plant” in Iraq
• “Largest Power Plant” in Iraq with its 1,500 MW output
• The plant is providing approximately 25% power demand of Kurdistan Region of Iraq
• 5 million work hours without a lost time incident
• Erbil Combined Cycle Power Project is designed to work on two types of fuel – natural gas as the primary and diesel as the secondary source.