French engineering firm Alstom has been awarded a contract worth around E500 million by RWE Power to supply two boilers for its Eemshaven power plant in the Netherlands.
According to the company, the new hard coal-fired units will provide clean, reliable electricity for more than three million homes and cut CO2 emissions by about 2.5 million tons per year as compared with older systems.
When completed in 2013, the new 800MW boilers will operate at ultra-supercritical steam conditions which means that they will be efficient of their kind worldwide, according to Alstom.
It said that reaching an efficiency of approximately 47%, the units will reportedly burn 20% less coal than previous generations to generate the same power while reducing plant emissions, including CO2.
Finally, the new units are designed to co-fire up to 10% biomass, an important renewable energy option. The units can be retrofitted at a later date with equipment used to capture CO2 after combustion.
Alstom, a player in the Dutch power generation market, is a leader in boiler technology, having supplied directly or through licenses more than 700,000 MW globally, of which more than 200,000 MW are supercritical boilers.