Wärtsilä Corporation was awarded an operations and maintenance (O&M) contract by the Brazilian company Rio Amazonas Energia SA in August 2006 for the new 83 MWe power plant in the city of Manaus in northern Brazil. The plant, which is nearing completion, comprises five Wärtsilä 18V46 generating sets. It is due for delivery in October 2006.
The O&M contract will cover all aspects of the operations and maintenance of the plant, providing the plant owner with the best available technical support, an experienced operator and fixed O&M costs. "Wärtsilä’s O&M services guarantee high performance of the power plant, with low costs, based on the long-term contract. We also provide complete technical support, including recruitment, training and management of the O&M team, as well as logistics and parts", says Robson Campos, Regional Director of Wärtsilä in Brazil.
The O&M contract has an initial term of five years and is renewable for a further five years. Through the contract, Wärtsilä will be responsible for operation and maintenance of the plant at an agreed price. Wärtsilä will thus hire all the necessary operations and maintenance personnel on the plant site, drawing upon technical support as necessary from Wärtsilä’s local workshop and its experienced personnel.
As Wärtsilä already has a number of power plants with Wärtsilä 46 engines in the region, the O&M contract is able to take advantage of economies of scale through long-term planning, optimizing the use of resources and achieving greater efficiency in the procurement and stock keeping of spare parts.
An important requirement for the plant is that it is required to supply the contracted power with 100% availability. It thus has a high level of automation of the latest design which features direct communication with the electric utility’s dispatch centre.
Notes to the editor:
This is the third major power plant project delivered by Wärtsilä in the Manaus region in recent months, making Wärtsilä a major contributor to meeting the fast growing power demand in the region. The Rio Amazonas plant will be the sixteenth Wärtsilä power plant in Brazil. Their combined generating capacity is more than 700 MWe.
Rio Amazonas Energia SA was established in Manaus to own and develop this independent power plant (IPP). The major shareholder is Crisga Ltda., a privately-owned energy holding and consulting company. The plant will have a contracted power requirement of 65 MWe and an installed capacity of 83 MWe. It will supply baseload power to the Manaus grid which is an isolated system in the Amazon region. The power purchase agreement for the plant has a term of 20 years.