GE Vernova and Harbin Electric said a 2-GW natural gas-fired power plant has entered commercial operation in China, providing power to that country’s most-populated province. The companies on Jan. 9 announced the start of operation of the Guangming power plant, owned and operated by Chinese state-owned power utility Shenzhen Energy Group Corp. The plant, located in Shenzhen Guangming, a district of Guangdong Province, is powered by three GE Vernova 9HA.01 gas turbines. Guangdong Province is home to about 127 million people. The plant is the latest collaboration between GE Vernova and Shenzhen Energy Group, who have jointly worked on projects for two decades, according to GE Vernova. The plant is helping replace coal-fired power generation, as China aims to achieve a carbon emissions peak by 2030, and have carbon neutrality by 2060. Chinese officials have said the country is committed to reduce coal’s share of its energy mix in part by expediting construction of efficient gas-fired combined cycle plants such as the Guangming facility. The companies on Thursday said the project also is aligned with local government policy reform in the Greater Bay Area, part of programs focused on a coal-to-gas energy transition.
This is a rendering of the 2-GW Guangming power plant in Guangdong Province, China. The plant is powered by three GE Vernova 9HA.01 gas turbines. Courtesy: GE Vernova “Natural gas-fired generators have the lowest CO2 emissions of all fossil power generation fuels, and nd are ideal for countries like China where the need to transition from coal at scale while retaining reliability of supply is paramount,” said Xu Xin, president of GE Vernova Gas Power China Services. “We are excited to work together with Harbin Electric and bring our advanced HA technology, which offers among the lowest carbon emissions per amount of fossil fuel in the industry, to give power plant operators, like Shenzen Energy Group, the ability to use fossil fuels more efficiently and lower carbon emissions compared to older coal power plants.” The GE Vernova 9HA.01 gas turbine has the capability to burn up to 50% by volume of hydrogen when blended with natural gas, which the company said offers a pathway for even lower-carbon emitting operations. Harbin Electric provided steam turbines and generators for the project. The gas turbines were provided by the joint venture called General Harbin Electric Gas Turbine (Qinhuangdao) Co., Ltd. That entity was was formed in 2019 between GE Vernova and Harbin Electric as an effort to focus on heavy duty gas turbine localization, with a goal to deliver more efficient and reliable support for China natural gas-fired power plants. GE Vernova has operated in China for more than 40 years. GE Vernova Gas Power serves more than 110 customers and more than 240 gas turbines in China, with an installed power capacity of 50 GW. GE Vernova to date has secured six HA projects with 13 9HA gas turbines in China, delivering a total capacity of nearly 10 GW. —Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
