After 44 years in operation, the São Simão hydroelectric plant will undergo modernization. The Hydro division of GE Renewable Energy and SPIC Brasil, a subsidiary of State Power Investment Corporation of China (SPIC), signed a R$700 million contract for the modernization of the plant’s generating units and auxiliary services.
The contract provides for the supply of equipment for the turbines, generators and auxiliary systems, in addition to the entire project engineering and integration, assembly and commissioning of the six generating units.
Claudio Trejger, CEO of GE Renewable Energy’s Hydro division in Latin America, told Valor that a new bid was made and the consortium led by GE – with the support of Powerchina – won.
“This asset is more than 40 years old, and every plant with more than 30 years old is already subject to some modernization to ensure availability for another 40 or 50 years and bring best digital practices in line with the present day,” he said.
Under the contract, GE Renewable Energy is responsible for 70% of the works. The execution of the project is expected to last nine years, with scheduled shutdowns of the generating units in order to update the systems and leave the plant more time available. Spic Brasil’s chief executive, Adriana Waltrick, believes that the investment in the plant is key as the company has goals for a transition to clean sources energy.
“The modernization prepares the São Simão hydroelectric plant for the future, reinforcing the efficiency and reliability of our main renewable power generation asset in the country, which is being equipped with the most modern technology,” she said.
Located between the municipalities of Santa Vitória (state of Minas Gerais) and São Simão (state of Goiás), São Simão is fundamental for Brazil’s energy security. With an installed capacity of 1,710 megawatts, the plant could power around 6 million homes.
The hydroelectric plant belonged to Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (Cemig) and GE was already in talks for modernization, but there was change in the company’s strategy to sell assets and the contract was cancelled.
In 2017, the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Aneel) held a concession auction. SPIC Brasil won São Simão’s concession in the following year after a bid of R$7.18 billion. The Chinese company also committed to a robust modernization plan of around R$1 billion.
The plant has six generating units with 285 MW each, in addition to a reservoir capable of storing 2.54% of the reservoir volume of the Southeast/Central West System. Ms. Waltrick also highlights the importance of the project for an energy-consuming region, in a context of growing energy demand.
“The plant is located in an important and strategic electro-energy flow region, and is an important source for Brazil’s power generation system,” Mr. Waltrick said.
Ms. Waltrick says that there is a first planning phase of a year and a half of engineering, development and integration, before starting work at the plant.
“The downtime per machine is 10 months. We will replace some parts of the turbine and we will recover or manufacture others, then there is the assembly and testing. We will stop one machine a year,” she said.
Mr. Trejger points out that it is not a repowering process, since the plant will not have an increase in power. With an additional investment, this could be done. “The plant has six machines, but the civil construction was made to have ten machines and could add another four…In the future, it is possible to increase the generation capacity of the power plant at the end,” he said.
GE is also working on the modernization of Ilha Solteira (3,444 MW) and Jupiá (1,551 MW), owned CTG Brasil, and sees a market for modernization and repowering, since the current Brazilian hydroelectric segment has important plants operating for more than 70 years and in need of retrofit. In addition, the last auction with medium and large hydroelectric plants was held in 2013 and currently the Electric System Expansion Plan does not foresee new plants due to environmental reasons.
Source: Valor International