Baymina Plant Tour

Dear Colleagues,

Sometimes you complete a good job, you know that you accomplish a good return, it is a good job, many people had learnt/ earned many things, it is something you created for a good value

you know that it was good, you do not need any appreciation, you do not need anyone to thank, you appreciate yourself that it was good, you feel happy, you want to drink a good red dry wine to celebrate yourself, that was on 22nd February Thursday afternoon,

we had our coach at 1230 hours, we departed from the sidewalks of the chamber of mechanical engineering office with total 38 participants,

10 undergraduate ME students, 10 young/ 10 senior mechanical engineers,
8 contractor/engineers to join us at the main gate,

we left the city center, on the way to the Baymina 770 MWe combined cycle thermal power plant

On our early period of departure, your writer took the initiative,
distributed the sandwiches, sour milk shakes,
introduced himself as the member of
Energy commission of the Chamber of mechanical Engineers in Ankara

explained the thermal power plant which we would be visiting, advised the participants how important/ efficient/ new, the power plant is,
then we asked the members to introduce themselves within a few sentences,
since we talked that much, nobody said "No"

Baymina Temelli Combined cycle power plant is 55 km west of Ankara city center,
on a remote empty landscape

on our coach ride, we sent SMS messages to the responsible plant manager where we were, and when we arrived to the plant main gate, they were ready to meet us for the plant excursion

we delivered our ID cards received our barges, signed documents against any accident liability to keep the plant immune,

we are asked to wear our security shoes, safety glasses, safety helmets

and then we visited the biggest commercial combined cycle power plant units available on the earth. They have

2 each General Electric Frame-9F gas turbine- each to generate 250 MWe and each cost 50 million US Dollar

2 each CMI Belgium design- Gulermak fabrication- with supplementary firing forced circulation type heat recovery steam generators - each cost 15 million US Dollar

1 each 300 MWe Alstom delivery 3-stage Steam Turbine - 60 million US Dollar

plus natural gas inlet facilities
plus water treatment- demineralization, water ponds, water cooling systems

Then the plant engineers invited us to their meeting room and explained the plant details with PC presentations,

since the land is in the special flight zone of military planes, plant is requested to use the nearby Ankara creek rather than dry type cooling towers

so plant uses the downstream water of Ankara Creek, highly polluted, carrying all dirt of Ankara household disposals, too difficult to clean

they spent overall 500 million US Dollars for the total investment

they initiated the project in 1998 as feasibility, completed the plant construction in 2004 within net 27 months

they will receive natural gas from BOTAS national gas distribution company

and they will deliver their power generation 700 to 770 MWe maximum to Public electricity distribution company

They have no power to increase their output capacity, unless requested by public authority

although they need “Inlet Air Cooler” for Power Enhancement so that they can increase their power output approximately by 10 % as elsewhere

Public authority decides how much they should produce, all within certain rules, regulations, agreements and formulas

System will run for 16 years non-stop, and generate the investors steady income.

Investor French/ Belgium "SUEZ Energy International" company will earn routine annual income, together with local partner Mimag company which has 5% equity

We then completed our plant visit,

We had tea and cookies, thanked our hosts

Your writer was happy to learn that some of the plant engineers were his blog readers

They asked details in some of blog articles,

We took group photos at the main gate

we returned to Ankara, I took municipality coach to return home

we showed our colleagues what a good/ efficient, state-of-the art, latest technology combined cycle power plant is

At home I poured half a glass of a good red dry local wine, KalecikKarasi vintage 2003, to congratulate myself. It was a real good job.

Your comments are always welcome.