POWER September 2012 - 39

TOP PLANTS
1. Packing plenty of heat and power
into a small space. Glow Phase 5
is a 382-MW 1 x 1 combined cycle train that
supplies electricity and process steam to a
growing industrial area in Thailand. Courtesy:
Black & Veatch
international industrial and services groups in
the world. Glow Group generates and supplies
electricity to the Electricity Generating Authority
of Thailand under that country's small power
producer and independent power producer programs.
Glow also supplies electricity, steam,
industrial water, and services to large industrial
customers principally in the Map Ta Phut area
southeast of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand.
Glow Group's combined installed capacities
include 3,078 MW of power (excluding a 110MW
LM6000-based combined cycle plant under
construction), 1,206 tons per hour of steam,
and 4,860 cubic meters per hour of processed
(clarified and demineralized) water.
As industrial expansion continues in Thailand's
Map Ta Phut area (a major industrial
zone), so too does demand for electricity and
process steam. To serve this growing demand,
Glow Group, a leading utilities provider in Map
Ta Phut, initiated a combined cycle cogeneration
power plant project in the Map Ta Phut Industrial
Estate, Muang district, Rayong province. The
project occupies what had been a vacant area of
the existing power plant complex of Glow SPP
3 Co. Ltd., a unit of Glow Group.
and rubber industries has resulted in power
demand increasing at an annual rate of as
much as 3.5%. The Thai government plans
to increase the country's total installed power
plant capacity to 52 GW by 2020. With a
share of just less than 70%, gas-fired power
plants today account for the majority of Thailand's
power generating capacity.
The World Bank called Thailand " one of
the great development success stories, " with
sustained strong growth and impressive efforts
to reduce poverty. In the decade that
ended in 1995, the Thai economy was one
of the world's fastest growing, at an average
rate of 8% to 9% per year. After recovering
from the Asian Crisis of 1997-1998, the Thai
economy took off again, with growth averaging
5% per year in the period 2002-2007.
Economic growth at just below 4% during
the first three quarters of 2011 was interrupted
by historic flooding in October and
November 2011 in industrial areas north of
Bangkok. Floods crippled the manufacturing
sector and led to a revised growth rate of
0.1% for the year.
Glow said its power-generating plants remained
operational during the floods but that
its customers and suppliers were affected.
The nation's industrial sector was poised to
recover starting in the second quarter of 2012,
and the government anticipated the economy
would grow at a rate of between 5.5% and
6.5% this year.
GDF SUEZ Energy International is Glow
Energy's major shareholder and is a division
of the GDF SUEZ Group, one of the largest
September 2012 | POWER
Project Specifications
The Glow Phase 5 project shown in Figure
1 was part of a planned expansion to Glow's
existing facility in Thailand and was designed
to deliver up to a nominal 382 MW of
electricity under condensing operation. It is
also capable of exporting up to 160 tons/hour
of high-pressure steam to the existing Glow
steam network.
Major equipment suppliers included Siemens
for the combustion and steam turbine/
generators and condenser, Hangzhou Boiler
Group for the triple-pressure with reheat
HRSGs, Hyundai for the generator step-up
transformers, KSB for the condensate and
feedwater pumps, and Flowserve for the circulating
water pumps.
Construction Timeline
and Challenges
Glow Energy Plc in July 2008 signed a $302
million contract with a consortium made up
of Black & Veatch and Marubeni for equipment
supply and construction. A notice to
proceed soon followed. Project construction
began in 2009, and the project was commissioned
and entered service in August 2011.
Due to the site's limited laydown area,
equipment had to be stored five kilometers
away and scheduled for just-in-time delivery.
This arrangement essentially doubled the
amount of equipment and material handling,
but it proved essential given the site's space
limitations.
" We didn't want equipment too early or
too late " due to the detailed construction
www.powermag.com
lift sequences mapped out for the project,
McDermott said.
The Glow Phase 5 construction schedule
was designed around limiting the amount of
equipment on site due to space restrictions. A
2-D rendering showed the site was too small
for the combined cycle plant, with the ladder
on the HRSG stack seemingly overlapping
expansion loops of existing steam lines.
However, a 3-D study revealed sufficient
clearance existed for all equipment, along
with access for maintenance once the plant
was up and running and helped manage the
site's restricted area.
For example, a turntable had to be used to
bring in the gas turbine and transformers, turn
them in place, and slide them into position due
to limited space between the new project and
the existing circulating fluidized bed boiler installed
in the 1990s. And early in the project,
the unit's electrical building had to be relocated
to a position between the steam turbine and
the gas turbine. The building's original location
conflicted with where a crane had to be
located to install the HRSG.
" We ended up with a building under a
building, " McDermott said of the electrical
building's final location.
During construction, the engineering, procurement,
and construction partners also encountered
brackish groundwater, which had
caused corrosion problems with an existing
carbon steel fire protection system. The solution
was to specify valves capable of withstanding
a seawater environment.
The project sourced equipment from more
than 20 countries across several continents.
Shipping logistics, language barriers, time
zone impediments all proved difficult, yet
were successfully addressed.
Constructing a plant in the midst of existing
operating units required close coordination
and innovative engineering and
planning to maintain the project schedule
while supporting the needs of the existing
operational facilities.
Operating Characteristics
The natural gas-fired plant includes one
Siemens SGT5-4000F combustion turbine
generator exhausting into one triple-pressure
HRSG and one reheat condensing steam
turbine generator. The completed combined
cycle cogeneration plant provides greater operational
flexibility in generating electricity
and steam for its customers.
The plant complies with all Thai environmental
regulations. Adjustments were made
in the plant design in the areas of SO2 monitoring
and residual chlorine monitoring to
ensure compliance with the permit. ■
-David Wagman is executive
editor of POWER.
39
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2012

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