The town of Kirishi (Leningrad Oblast) hosted today the celebrations dedicated to commissioning of a combined cycle gas turbine unit CCGT-800 at the Kirishi SDPS.

Taking part in the events were Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Igor Sechin, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergey Shmatko, Russian Energy Minister, Nikolai Vinnichenko, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Northwestern Federal Okrug, and Valery Serdyukov, Governor of the Leningrad Oblast.

CCGT-800 (a combined cycle gas turbine unit with the capacity of 800 MW) installed at the Kirishi SDPS is a unique project for Russia. Power generating unit No.6 (commissioned in 1975) was upgraded and two state-of-the-art gas turbines, 279 MW each (made by Siemens) with two brand new heat recovery boilers were built over the existing 300 MW steam turbine.

It was the first time in the history of the domestic power industry when large-scale efforts had been made to retrofit the existing power generating unit, which allowed to significantly increase its capacity as well as efficiency. Thus, the power generating unit efficiency has risen from 38 per cent to 55 per cent, and specific fuel equivalent consumption lowered almost 32 per cent – from 324 g/kWh to 221.5 g/kWh.

CCGT-800 at the Kirishi SDPS is the largest heat generating facility which has been commissioned over the last 30 years and operates as a single unit. It has become the combined cycle gas turbine unit of the highest power capacity in Russia.

 “Gazprom is the leader of the Russian energy market and the largest investor in the sector. Our task is to significantly increase the efficiency of power generation as well as existing facilities to the level shown by the biggest global energy companies. The most powerful drivers here are such projects as the combined cycle gas turbine unit CCGT-800 at the Kirishi SDPS,” said Alexey Miller.

Background

The Kirishi SDPS is situated in the Leningrad Oblast, 150 kilometers southeast of Saint Petersburg and the largest heat and power station of the Northwestern United Power System (UPS). The station is a production branch of WGC-2 (Gazprom Energoholding, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom, is the controlling shareholder of the company).

The main equipment of the Kirishi SDPS was put into operation between 1965 and 1983. Currently, the station includes:

• a heat recovery block (6 boiler and turbo generators) which provides the town of Kirishi and the Kirishi Industrial Zone with heat and power;
• a condensate block (6 power generating units) which provides the load and system management of the Northwestern UPS.

After CCGT-800 has been commissioned, the aggregate design capacity of the Kirishi SDPS increased to 2.6 GW.

As part of the Capacity Supply Agreement (CSA) for the period until 2016, the Gazprom power generating assets (WGC-2, Mosenergo, TGC-1) have an obligation to provide some 9 GW in total (while under the CSA, all investors of the Russian power industry have an obligation to produce some 30 GW). Taking in the capacity of CCGT-800 at the Kirishi SDPS, the total injection volume of the Company's power generating assets has already reached 3.8 GW under the CSA only.