The US$2.65bn turnkey contract for the Subiya Project, a 200MW combined cycle plant facility fuelled by natural gas, which will ultimately be owned by Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity & Water, has been awarded to GE Energy and Hyundai Heavy Industries.
In the proposed combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant, a gas turbine generator will generate electricity and the waste heat will be used to make steam to generate additional electricity via a steam turbine.
This last step enhances the efficiency of electricity generation. Most new gas power plants in North America and Europe are of this type. In a thermal power plant, high- temperature heat - as input to the power plant, usually from burning of fuel - is converted to electricity as one of the outputs and low-temperature heat as another output. As a rule, in order to achieve high efficiency, the temperature difference between the input and output heat levels should be as high as possible. This is achieved by combining the Rankine (steam) and Brayton (gas) thermodynamic cycles.
By 2011 Sabiya is projected to add 1,300MW of capacity to the grid, with phase two bringing 700MW online by 2012. Kuwait's Minister of Electricity & Water, His Excellency Dr.Bader Shabeeb Al Shriaan, has commented: "Kuwait's continuing power demand will grow at about 8% per year. Sabiya will be the largest combined power plant in Kuwait and will raise power capacity to around 11GW."