Saudi Electricity Company raises Al-Qariya plant’s turbine efficiency

The Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) has revealed that the combined generation of Al-Qariya plant enabled to raise the efficiency of its turbines to 54.6 percent.
This is as a result of ongoing development operations of units during the last period and also as part of some initiatives of the accelerated strategic transformation program (ASTP) aimed at providing high-reliability of electric service, according to the world’s latest electrical technology.
SEC CEO Ziyad Al-Shiha explained that the station was enabled on Oct. 7 to record unprecedented number in the capacity of generating its own units, reaching 4,475 megawatts at a temperature of 32 degrees Celsius.
This record makes it the largest plant in the world operating under the combined cycle system, which is in line with the plans and objectives of the ASTP.
This is intended to improve the thermal efficiency of power plants within the program initiatives launched since 2014.
The initiatives managed to reduce the waste of the produced energy inside the stations to 3 percent and this result is considered one of the top global averages in electricity, Al-Shiha added.
According to SEC's system performance of improving the thermal efficiency of power plants, the company has managed to save 5.6 million barrels of equivalent fuel since the beginning of 2015 until the end of the first half of 2016.
SEC plans to raise thermal efficiency within generating plants from 34 percent to 40 percent by the end of 2020, by implementing a number of preventive maintenance planned programs for maternity units according to the number of actual operation hours.
Steve Bull, CEO of General Electric (GE), described Al-Qariya plant as the most effective and efficient plant in the world because of quality and optimal investment in human resources at the company.