Thursday, April 22, 2010

New Imported Coal firing Thermal Power Plant investment in Yalova, Turkey



Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

Local investor company has recently announced that they have signed an agreement to build a new 100 -megawatt (plus 350 tph steam) generating imported coal firing new thermal power plant in Yalova, a beautiful summer resort close to Istanbul.

Financial details were not released yet by the investors. We have further reviewed and evaluated the EIA reports in their web site,

The budget for this project is about 135 million US Dollars. Available details are as follows

Plant will employ pulverized coal firing system. The first unit is purchased from Poland; the second stand-by unit is supplied from South Africa which is designed to BS standards. Both units are certified to TUV Germany standards. They will have sufficient capacity dust collection ESPs, and flue gas desulphurization systems.

Slug discharge system will not use ash dam, but investor prefers to move the bottom ash disposal system via trucks to nearby cement factories. That is to be carefully monitored. Any deep sea discharge should be avoided. Otherwise it becomes an environmental disaster.

It is declared that plant cooling system will use seawater. Seawater cooling cycle should not exceed environmentally safe limitations otherwise we face nearby sea life endangered. Fish population should be carefully monitored and kept unharmed.

Imported coal supply will be handled with large body ocean ships, which will need large seaport at plant’s seaside, which is quite shallow, at Izmit Bay entrance. That will need special and expensive design. Periodical coal ship unloading may create sea traffic congestion, plus more sea traffic in Turkish Channels. These risks should also be taken into consideration by the regulatory board.

Your writer feels happy to get such news on new energy investments in our local energy market, provided that they are environmentally friendly, they have completed all obligations for Environmental Impact Assessment Reports, they receive their updated license from the Local Regulatory Board, design by local engineering companies as much as possible, fabricate in the local fabrication plants as much as possible, install by our local contractors, commissioned and supervised by our local engineering power, operated by our own staff, and regularly checked by our own Labor force in programmed maintenance.

Your writer sincerely feels that energy investors deserve all our support to complete those power plant investments. They deserve since they risk their own property in order to get proper "Corporate Financing" at reasonable interest rates, and payment terms.

Hence your writer also tries to avoid them to make any technical mistakes in their power plant design, furthermore to avoid incorrect selection of the necessary equipment, wishes them to operate the plant for many years, to generate electricity which will push our economic prosperity.

There are not much project details; only already known details are disclosed. We learn that the output capacity is 100 –megawatt, pulverized coal firing steam generators, with sufficient capacity ESP and FGD systems.

Local investor should feel comfortable that we shall be warning them in proper design, sourcing fabrication, site installation, logistics, and all and all public approvals.

We all expect that these energy investments should bring prosperity, employment and peace to the site. Maximized local manpower, maximized local engineering/ fabrication/ site installation capabilities should be employed.

After brief review of the project, we feel that the investor group should need answers to the following questions as a stress test of the investment project;

We need to learn the origins of the basic equipment, steam turbine, steam generator, condenser, cooling system, sea water circulation, ash handling, ESP dust collecting details.

In EIA certification and Local regulatory board for license updating, there should not be any deviation of the information they will be declaring in the local information meeting and the information they will be furnishing to the public administrations.

Their high stacks should not interfere with the airplane landing route of the nearby air force airport which is used for training of the young cadets in summer time. Red lights on the high stacks may not be sufficient for the ongoing air traffic of the air force trainees. Foreseeable Risks are to be clearly defined at this point.

We need to know who will be the site constructor? They should be local companies. Local labors will be needed at the site for smooth and fast execution of the construction.

We need to know the estimated project period, the importance milestones; we expect that 38-40 months could be a reasonable period.

Do they have long term imported coal purchase agreement with respective vendors?

Do they/ investors consider any capacity extension in the long term in 10-20 years time? Do they have enough space/ land for that extension??

We will be too pleased to learn if the local party will be considering to create local in-house engineering department to carry out necessary basic engineering in the long term.

Yalova is a beautiful resort region, close to Istanbul. There are summer houses which were constructed over a long period of time. Highly educated old age retirees spend almost 6-months in those summer houses. They fear that their summer time will be disturbed by the new investment, air and sea pollution. They need confidence. The past environmental sensitivity record of the plant is not so comfortable, at least people feel so.

We only get pleased to read investment, and sincerely feel that energy investors deserve all our support to complete those power plant investments. On the other hand, there is great risk in project finance of such investments due to public response.

Those companies, who are ignorant of local people’s environmental sensitivity, neglecting local engineering contribution, neglecting world class environmental limitations, will surely deserve the highest level of local resistance in legal platforms.

They may have too much of a headache during project execution; therefore, the project finance institutions should make their risk assessments carefully.

We would like to warn them not to make any technical mistakes in their power plant design, avoid incorrect selection of the necessary basic equipment, as well as environmental requirements, and wish them to operate the plant for many years, to generate electricity which will push our economic prosperity.

The investors should feel comfortable that we shall be warning them for proper design, sourcing fabrication, site installation, logistics, and public approvals.

We all expect that these energy investments will bring prosperity, employment and peace to the site. Maximized environmental sensitivity, maximized air and sea pollution control, maximized local engineering/ fabrication/ site installation capabilities should be employed.

May God bless them with wisdom for all those who need. May God save you and forgive you for making any mistakes in your risk assessment.

God bless you all.

--
Haluk Direskeneli, Munich based Energy Analyst

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