Gas turbine upgrade boosts output by 15 MW in African plant

GE has completed the first stage of a gas turbine upgrade at a power plant in Ivory Coast.

The project – which GE said is the first of its kind in Sub Saharan Africa – has seen an upgrade on one of two gas turbines at the Azito III plant in the Yopougon district boost the plant’s overall production by 15 MW. A similar upgrade on the second gas turbine will begin later this year.

And the plant is also to install GE’s Predix asset performance management software.

Luc Aye, general manager of Azito Energie which operates the plant, said GE’s hardware solutions “are helping us to improve our plant competitiveness, modernizing our existing assets and achieving our sustainability goals. It is a strategic move for Azito to support the country’s energy and economic priorities.”

“With plant output already increasing by up to 30 MW, we are keen on leveraging digital technology and knowledge management to further improve on our plant overall performance. Operational efficiency, reliability and availability of our assets have always been our key focus.”

GE’s MXL2 upgrade was carried out on the first turbine, compressor and combustor and is designed to be compatible with all installed GT13E2 units. It combines GE’s latest technology developments and over 10 million operating hours of GT13E2 fleet experience.

GE said the Predix software will “provide real-time unified visibility into the health of assets critical to the customer —all in one place. It can predict and accurately diagnose issues with greater accuracy before they occur with the help of predictive analytics, while generating the root cause analysis of events and providing a framework for the resolution of identified issues.”