Construction Begins on New Knapsack II CCPP in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
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Siemens to build this environmentally friendly power-generation plant on a turnkey basis Siemens is starting work on turnkey erection of Knapsack II combined-cycle power plant (CCPP) at Hürth near Cologne, Germany. While Siemens and the Norwegian power supply company Statkraft had already concluded a contract to build the plant in September 2010, the project was conditional on obtaining planning permission, which was still pending at that time. After preplanning over the past few months, regional authorities in Cologne have now granted the final building permission and operating license. The power plant is scheduled to commence operation in 2013.
Knapsack II CCPP is being built in Hürth's chemical industry park and will have an installed generating capacity of about 430 megawatts. Siemens is delivering a Model SGT5-4000F gas turbine, an SST5-5000 steam turbine, and an SGen5-2000H electrical generator as well as the complete electrical equipment and SPPA-T3000 instrumentation and control system. The main components are arranged in a single-shaft configuration, a unique selling point of Siemens power plants that plays an important role in the flexibility of electricity generating plants of this type.
"Construction of this plant is very significant in view of the energy reforms in Germany. Thanks to its high degree of flexibility and low CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions, this power plant can compensate for sudden outages due to fluctuations in wind and solar power both quickly and in an environmentally friendly manner," notes Lothar Balling, Head of Gas Turbine Power Plant Solutions at Siemens. "Stakraft has made this far-reaching decision despite the uncertain market situation, since power plants of this type are necessary to ensure stabilization in the German electrical power grid."
"The decision to expand the Knapsack facility was made in 2010 at a time of great uncertainties. How much new capacity will Europe need? Will more ambitious CO2 targets be set, or will Europe be content with an aging, inefficient power plant fleet as a bridge to a renewable future? Our expectation is that in the future, the market will reward providers that offer flexible capacities, and will not discriminate against investments already made at this stage," adds Jürgen Tzschoppe, CEO of Statkraft Markets GmbH.
High efficiency combined cycle power plants are part of Siemens' Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2010, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about EUR28 billion, making Siemens the world's largest supplier of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 270 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of the megacities Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore.
The Siemens Energy Sector is the world's leading supplier of a complete spectrum of products, services and solutions for the generation, transmission and distribution of power and for the extraction, conversion and transport of oil and gas. In fiscal 2010 (ended September 30), the Energy Sector had revenues of approximately EUR25.5 billion and received new orders totaling more than EUR30.1 billion and posted a profit of more than EUR3.3 billion. On September 30, 2010, the Energy Sector had a work force of more than 88,000. Further information is available at: http://www.siemens.com/energy.
