Local Energy + Local Industry
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has the largest reservoirs of natural gas in the world and is currently the world’s 3rd largest producer.
Gas turbine generators are key components of its energy market, which power both the lighting in its communities and the high temperatures used in its industrial processes.”
Generating energy with natural gas is by far the cleanest way to produce energy in the Oil and Gas sector. It is also one of the safest ways to produce energy in general—safer even than biomass production, which is seeing a dramatic rise in popularity as landfills and waste management become areas of concern in sustainability.
The best way to generate energy with natural gas is through a “combined cycle” power plant, which is basically a continuous high-pressure system whose goal is to maximize the efficiency of both the burning of the natural gas and the subsequent heat that burning generates. This requires two turbines, one pushed by combustion and one pushed by the steam generated using excess heat from the combustion.
Supporting Industry—and People
We recently partnered with FATA group to deliver end-to-end plans for a 450 MW combined cycle power plant for BUTIA Iranian Steel Company, as part of the fullfillment of the $237 million energy deal between the two companies.
The power plant will be built just outside of the 1800-year-old city of Kerman, capital of Iran’s Kerman province and, supporting a population of nearly 1 million people, its 10th largest city. This project is critical in supporting the local grid with as Butia opens its new energy-intensive iron ore pellet production plant. The Kerman economy relies heavily on its large iron ore deposits, producing over 50 million tons of ore, 17 million tons of iron ore pellet, and 10 million tons of steel every year.
Sustainable Choices
For the project, we recommended and designed the power plant around an Ansaldo AE94.3 gas turbine. This product not only saves energy by providing a fast ramp-up time—the generator can be operational at baseload conditions in less than 30 minutes—but it also operates more sustainably by producing less CO2e than other, similar models.
We were also proud that the project gave us the opportunity to control costs and minimize environmental shipping impact, since the gas has minimal distribution costs, owing to Iran’s plentiful supply, and since the materials to build the turbine could be locally sourced. Iran is currently manufacturing up to 90% of the required materials for gas turbines.