French power manufacturer Alstom has won a €12m contract from the developer of the 950MW Mátrai Eromu lignite-fired power plant in Hungary to renovate its steam turbines in blocks 4 and 5.

The contract is a part of the renovation project in the country in the last eight years, which aims to restore the original performance and availability of the two 232MW blocks at the facility.

The power facility is the largest in the country to be fuelled with coal, and accounts for nearly 21% of the total power produced.

Almost 1 million households in the country will have their energy requirements met by the Hungarian power plant.

According to the terms of the contract, Alstom will renovate the two turbines, each of which have a generation capacity of 232MW.

It will also be responsible for the field works, engineering, quality control and project management for the power units at the facility, which will be performed by its local service team.

Also included in the order are subsystems for the turbines, such as safety and control, gland steam, jacking and lube oil, turbine drain systems and bleedings.

Alstom plans to conduct the turbine constructions at its facilities placed in the German cities of Mannheim and Berlin, and also in Birr, and Switzerland.

The renovation works will be done in parts by Alstom. Initially it will replace the turbine unit in Block V with another repaired turbine unit purchased by Mátra Power Plant from another facility.

The firm will then repair the Block V unit, and in turn, use it to replace the one in Bloc IV.

The entire renovation process is expected to take much less time; 66 days of outage time per block, than the conventional way of shutting down the units for the entire renewal period.

Alstom Hungary Power Service Division managing director Csaba Kiss said: “Alstom’s professional relations with the power plant goes back to its construction, this is why we are delighted to provide our state-of-the-art expertise to this project.”