€17 million plant upgrade

Alstom has been awarded contracts totalling more than €17 million to provide service solutions for plant upgrade in

.

Under the first contract, Alstom said it will enhance the efficiency of the cooling system of two 215 MW units (4 and 5) at Mátrai Eromu Rt., a lignite-fired plant belonging to the RWE Group, and also, under a separate order, will overhaul and modify the unit 5 steam turbine. The 80-days outages of unit 5 and 4 are planned for August 2006 and April 2007 respectively.

As well as carrying out the modifications, Alstom will also supply two condensers, a cooling tower, a water treatment plant, and the new piping.

Mátrai Eromu is the largest coal-fired plant in Hungary with a capacity of 845 MW. The plant is a base load electricity generator providing the cheapest fossil-fuel based power to the Hungarian power market.

The capacities of the existing dry cooling systems will become insufficient and will require enhancement by the end of 2007, when Mátrai Eromu adds 30 MW gas turbines to each of its 215 MW units No 4 and 5. The gas turbines will provide flexible electricity to the national grid and additional heat to the unit's regeneration systems.

The newly developed Alstom cooling solution is to connect new surface condensers cooled by wet towers to the existing mixing condensers. It will secure a 230 MW output during summer heat peaks and a 246 MW output in winter.

The upgraded system will restore the nominal capacity of the units, which were losing over 10% during summer peaks, and will increase unit efficiency by over 1%.

This hybrid cold-end upgrade will be executed together with the steam turbine upgrade.