GE Inks Contracts for Mexican CCGT
General Electric’s Power Services division signed on January 22 a series of agreements totalling $330mn, for servicing a 907-MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant in Mexico.
The agreements are with a consortium formed by Macquarie Capital and Techint and relate to the Norte III power plant in the municipality of Ciudad Juarez, in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico.
The agreements comprise an operation and maintenance agreement and a contractual service agreement, and run for 25 years.
At the start of 2015, Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) commissioned the development of a CCGT plant just south of Ciudad Juarez to help meet the growing need for electricity in the region.
The Chihuahua region is identified as a “deficient node” in CFE’s projection of electricity demand in Mexico between 2017 and 2030, given its expected growth in the next decade.
During peak construction, Norte III will employ about 2,000 workers and is expected to provide electricity to more than 500,000 homes in Mexico.
GE has been active in Mexico since 1896, and its 16,000 m² Morelia Service Centre, in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico, has been providing maintenance, testing and repair solutions throughout Latin America since 1929.
Mexico now has total installed power generating capacity of 60 GW, about 54% of which is gas-fired. Sener, the country’s energy secretariat, expects there to be 24.9 GW of new gas-fired capacity by 2029, along with 20.4 GW of renewables and about 3.9 GW nuclear. Much of the gas-fired capacity is expected to replace 15.9 GW of coal and fuel oil-fired plants, which are being phased out to reduce emissions from the power sector. In addition, power demand growth of about 6% a year is expected through to 2029.
Power sector growth is expected to boost demand for natural gas in the sector to 5.4bn ft3/day, from 3.7bn ft3/day now.