Alstom introduces its 3MW ECO 110 wind turbine, one of the most powerful onshore wind turbines in the world, specifically designed to ensure the highest energy production on low to medium wind speed sites throughout Europe and worldwide.

The ECO 110 features a 110m-rotor diameter, one of the largest rotors available today for onshore applications – to capture even greater amounts of wind on a given site, maximizing the energy yield of the turbine.

The ECO 110 can produce enough energy for 2000 households, and avoid the production of 7000 tonnes a year of CO2. Its 53 metre-long blades, over half a soccer field long, have been designed to capture more power more effectively. This means fewer turbines and less land space are required to generate the same amount of power.

The ECO 110 has been designed to reduce its installation, operation and maintenance costs. Its modular design allows the use of industry standard transport and installation equipment. The ergonomic design of its nacelle leaves room to perform easy maintenance of all components, and allows direct access from the nacelle to the hub. The ECO 110 has been designed to also minimize noise emission. By keeping the rotor speed below 13.7 rotations per minute, Alstom Wind’s innovation team has designed one of the most silent wind turbines available on the market. With its low noise emission, the ECO 110 is ready to contribute to the continuous and harmonious development of onshore wind power, particularly in Europe where this parameter is becoming critical.

Wärtsilä received equipment orders for two new power plants to be supplied to customers in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh has established an urgent plan for dealing with the current power shortage, and these two new power plants will add significant generating capacity to the national grid. The value of the two contracts is approximately EUR 68 million.

Summit Naryanganj Power Co. Ltd, an independent power producer (IPP), has ordered Wärtsilä 46GD gas-diesel engines and auxiliary equipment for its Naryanganj power plant project. Although the site does not currently have access to gas supplies, the dual-fuel engines can be switched from heavy fuel oil (HFO) operation to gas at a later stage when gas eventually becomes available.

The Wärtsilä gas-diesel technology offers a unique degree of fuel flexibility, permitting the engines to run on a variety of fuels including crude oil, heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, natural gas, associated gas, or any combination of liquid fuel and gas. In addition, the technology is insensitive to variations in the fuel composition. This feature enables even further flexibility in the utilization of different kinds of fuel for power generation.

Another IPP, Khulna Power Unit II Ltd., has ordered Wärtsilä 46 engines and auxiliary equipment for its Khulna Extension project. In view of the urgency of the situation in Bangladesh, both orders are being handled on a fast-track basis, and the power plants are scheduled to be in operation as early as March 2011.

Wärtsilä currently has around 600 MW of generating capacity installed in Bangladesh.

In an extension of their existing cooperation in the development of 2-stage turbocharged medium speed diesel engines, Finnish power solutions provider Wärtsilä and Swiss turbocharging specialist ABB Turbo Systems intend to cooperate with a third partner, aftertreatment specialist Hug Engineering, based in Elsau, Switzerland. The object of the new joint project is to develop an innovative compact selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system especially tailored to operation with two-stage turbocharging.

Under the envisaged agreement, Wärtsilä, ABB Turbo Systems and HUG Engineering will target a further expansion of flexible engine operation at reduced NOx emissions and optimized fuel consumption, as well as targeting savings in first and life cycle costs. To develop the new combined SCR and turbocharging solution and its integrated application on the engine, the partners will combine their expertise and resources in order to achieve early readiness for market.