The three gas turbines that will be fitted in the new power station being built at Delimara are going to be shipped to Malta from the Siemens factory in Sweden this November.

The 36-tonne turbine cores have already been assembled, and two of the turbines are nearing completion, Siemens said during a visit to the factory where the turbines are being built in Sweden.

The turbines take around 50 to 52 weeks to be manufactured.

Siemens workers need a minimum of eight years’ experience before being allowed to work on the assembly of turbine cores.

Testing of the turbines at the Siemens plant in Sweden is vital, with Mats Flenhagen – the Sales Manager for Small Power Plants – saying that issues which crop up on site cost 10 times more to fix than issues which are rectified at the facility.

Mr Flenhagen said that while shipping the turbines always tends to be slightly nerve-wracking, the Siemens factory in Finspangs ships out one unit on average per week, therefore Siemens has vast experience in the process.

The turbines will weigh close to 200 tonnes each once they have been attached to the skid plates.

There is around a one-week gap in the manufacturing process of the three turbines to be used in Malta.

Siemens said the three turbines are not manufactured in parallel as a contingency, as if any issue arises in the lead turbine they can be sorted out in the other two turbines.

The turbines will be delivered in two shipments.

This is being done for both security and insurance purposes.

The turbines are SGT-800s, a turbine that has been sold by Siemens since 1998.

The SGT-800 is Siemens’ best selling model, with 270 of these turbines having been sold world-wide and more than 3.3 million fleet hours of operation on the clock.

Product owner Mats Bjorkman explained that there has been a 99.4 per cent fleet reliability over the past five years, with an average time between forced outage 5306 hours.

“Our competitors are green with envy when seeing our reliability figures,” Mr Bjorkman said.

Mr Bjorkman said that a single blade in the turbine has the power equivalent of a formula one engine.

The turbine is run on a lean flame, meaning that emissions are kept to a minimum.

The SGT-800 also offers fuel flexibility, meaning different fuel mixtures can be burnt in the turbine.

Mr Bjorkman said the turbines can be monitored by Siemens remotely in Sweden, which saves both time and money as an engineer does not have to be flown on-site.

The overall design of the SGT-800 gas turbine ensures easy service access to the combustor and the burners.

The cold end of the gas turbine is connected to the generator via a reduction gear unit; this reduces the turbine speed from 6,600 rpm down to 1,500/1,800 rpm.

Air is compressed at 1,500 Celsius and combusted at 600 Celsius – the optimum temperature.

Catherine Halpin, the General Manager of ElectroGas, said she is happy with what she has seen at the Siemens factory today, and is optimistic the new power plant will be operational on schedule.

Asked about the €360 million loan guarantee given to the government to ElectroGas, and the loss of Gasol – one of the consortium members, Ms Halpin said she has nothing to add to previous statements by ElectroGas. 

Jacob Borg is reporting from Sweden