Wärtsilä will supply a 54.5 MW power plant for Madeira, Portugal. The order was placed in July by Empreasa de Electricidade de Madeira (EEM), a publicly owned energy company that generates and sells electricity throughout the island of Madeira.

The "Vitoria III" project, which is an extension of the existing Vitoria Thermal power plant, will supply electricity to the Madeira grid. Of the island's total installed capacity of 240 MW, 183 MW are already today provided by Wärtsilä power plants.

Wärtsilä's share of the total turnkey contract is valued at nearly EUR 33 million. The balance of the contract will be supplied by Wärtsilä's sales agent in Portugal, Energetus, with whom Wärtsilä has signed a consortium agreement for this project.

"This is an important contract that Wärtsilä is proud to have been awarded. The installation is challenging because of the plant's location outside Funchal city centre with residential property nearby, and for this reason extra noise abatement measures are necessary. The modern technology that the reliable dual-fuel engines represent, together with low emissions, excellent fuel consumption and the support service that we can offer, were critical in our winning this contract," commented Christer Strandvall, Wärtsilä's Regional Director for Western Europe.

Wärtsilä will be responsible for supplying three of its Wärtsilä 18V50DF dual-fuel engines, the generators, most of the mechanical auxiliary equipment, emission reduction equipment, electrical control equipment, various buildings, as well as engineering services, supervision and plant commissioning.

The first engine is scheduled to be in commercial operation in December 2009, with the remaining two scheduled to become operational a year later in December 2010.

The three Wärtsilä dual-fuel engines each have a rated output of 16,600 kWe and will run on heavy fuel oil until such time as gas is available. The exhaust gases will, via heat recovery boilers, generate steam that will be used for the power plant's internal fuel heating and for driving a steam turbine that will generate 3.4 MW of the total electrical output.

Tags: Empreasa de Electricidade de Madeira, Wartsila