L-3 Communications MAPPS, a wholly owned subsidiary of L-3 Communications, announced today that Termoelektrarna Brestanica d.o.o. (TEB) of Brestanica, Slovenia has awarded a contract to L-3 MAPPS to develop a simulator for two of its five generating units at the Brestanica Thermal Power Plant. The project will start immediately and the simulator is expected to be in service in the first half of 2006.

The two units to be simulated are ALSTOM-supplied open-cycle GT11N2 gas turbine plants, which together generate 228 MW. L-3 MAPPS has previously developed several simulators with ALSTOM (Switzerland) Ltd. for the GT13E2 and GT24 gas turbine plants. This time, for the Brestanica GT14/15 simulator, ALSTOM (Switzerland) will play a key role as principle supplier to L-3 MAPPS in the provision of plant know-how and certain modeling work.

As with the previous GT-powered simulators for ALSTOM plants, the Brestanica GT14/15 simulator will be deployed on the Linux operating system and will feature the ROSEÒ graphical simulation environment to model all plant systems and Datapath X to emulate the plants’ Advant OS500 operator stations.

"We have been interested in acquiring a simulator for our two newer units for some time," said Silvester Jeršič, project manager of TEB. "With the performance of the L-3 MAPPS simulators that we have seen at ALSTOM’s facility in Switzerland, we have no doubt that we have selected the right company to meet our high expectations."

"With the Brestanica simulator project, L-3 MAPPS will have simulated most of the larger gas turbine plant types in ALSTOM’s gas turbine range," said Rashid Khan, president of L-3 MAPPS. "We appreciate TEB’s confidence in us and ALSTOM’s collaboration, and we look forward to leveraging this extensive experience by offering our premium simulator solutions to the global user community that benefits from ALSTOM GTs."

The Brestanica Thermal Power Plant is situated just to the north of Brestanica. The older of the current power generating units have been in operation since 1975 and the newer ones since 2001, with a total installed rating of 323 MW. The plant is connected via a 110 kV switchyard to Slovenia’s electricity network, accounting for eleven percent of the system’s total installed power.