Wärtsilä Wins Major Power Plant Order from the Dominican Republic

Wärtsilä, a leading global supplier of flexible and efficient power plant solutions, has been awarded a turnkey contract to supply a gas-fired power plant for a project in the Dominican Republic. The combined cycle power plant will provide electricity for a gold mine. The value of Wärtsilä’s order is €155m.

The contract was signed with Barrick Gold of North America, a subsidiary of the Canada-based Barrick Gold Corporation. The power plant will serve and supply electricity for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine.

Wärtsilä’s scope of supply includes 12 Wärtsilä 50DF engine units in combined cycle. The dual-fuel flexibility of these Wärtsilä’s engines is a key advantage since they can run both on liquid fuels and on natural gas. This power plant represents the three values of Wärtsilä Smart Power Generation; the energy efficiency, the fuel flexibility and the operational flexibility.

“This is a major contract for Wärtsilä. The high efficiency of the Flexicycle™ design and the fast-track construction schedule were primary factors in our being awarded this significant order. The dual-fuel capability and the competitive investment costs were also important benefits for the customer,” says Sampo Suvisaari, general manager, Central America and the Caribbean, Wärtsilä Power Plants.

Barrick Gold is familiar with Wärtsilä’s capabilities having earlier purchased two other Wärtsilä power plant solutions.

The Wärtsilä Flexicycle advantage

The Wärtsilä Flexicycle solution combines the advantages of a flexible simple cycle plant with the superb efficiency of a combined cycle plant, in a unique way. Flexicycle power plants can be optimised for different outputs in the 100MW to 500MW range. The power plant solution is based on gas fired combustion engines and a steam turbine combined cycle. Each engine is equipped with a waste heat recovery steam generator. The power plant has one common steam turbine and a condenser. The power plant cooling is typically arranged so that the combustion engines are cooled with closed loop radiators and the steam cycle with cooling towers.

Wärtsilä has a strong presence in the Dominican Republic with already 900MW of installed generating capacity in the country. This represents almost half of the country’s active electrical capacity.