Generator doubles fuel use
The National, Monday February 16th, 2015
By DEMAS TIEN
THE new gas turbine at Kanudi power station in Port Moresby consumes twice more fuel than the older generator, a PNG Power Ltd official says.
Kanudi power station generation manager William Karanta told The National on Friday the new GE TM2500 gas turbine generator, which was installed and commissioned at Kanudi power station last year, had a fuel consumption rate of 6000 litres per day for a single unit.
He said the old solar T130 gas turbine generator consumed 3000l per day for a single unit.
The GE TM2500 generator is one of the two K140 million generators that were bought by the Government from Israel. The other generator has been sent to Lae and both are operated by PPL.
Karanta said the generator had a dual operating fuel system.
“It is flexible to operate on either natural gas or liquid distillate fuels. At the moment, the generator is operated by liquid distillate fuel – diesel,” he said.
Karanta said since its commissioning in December 2014, the generator had operated for 480 hours at the rate of 10 hours per day supplying about 25 megawatts of electricity.
He added that the generator had consumed 2,371,748 litres of diesel since it was commissioned.
Karanta said the generator only operated when there was downfall in the hydro power supplies.
However, he said the new generator was very efficient but needed the right quality of fuel.
“After the installation and commissioning of this TM 2500 unit, we experienced few technical issues but in terms of operation it is running very well. But I need to get the quality fuel in so I will be able to operate this unit to the best of what it is meant for,” he said.
Meanwhile, PNG Power chairman Larry Andagali is in Singapore to finalise terms of an agreement for ExxonMobil to boost Port Moresby’s power supply.
This follows the recent signing of a memorandum of agreement with ExxonMobil PNG Ltd in Port Moresby last month.
The Government had agreed with ExxonMobil that the first 25 megawatts would be supplied to Port Moresby in June in time for Pacific Games, plus an additional 50 megawatts in the next 12 months.