NTPC has awarded a contract to Alstom and NASL for modernisation of the Talcher super thermal power plant in India.

Under the €13m (INR 1,074m) contract, the two companies will renovate and modernise electrostatic precipitators (ESP) at four units of the 4 x 500MW Talcher power plant in Odisha.

The contract scope includes engineering, supply, erection, commissioning and testing of new parallel passes installed for four ESPs, a dry ash handling system for new passes and associated civil, mechanical and electrical works.

Alstom and NASL had executed ESP retrofits for NTPC’s Tanda 4 x 110MW plant as well.

The upgrade will reduce particulate emissions from the plant below 50mg/Nm³.

The project is scheduled to be commissioned in 2018.

Alstom Thermal Power & Renewable Power in India vice-president Patrick Ledermann said it is a significant step forward for Alstom and NASL and clearly reinforces the market’s faith in the company’s leading air quality control systems and services.

“Alstom’s extensive experience in providing customised retrofit solution, seamlessly integrated into the existing plant, made it the unparalleled choice for this project. Going forward, our focus will be to ensure the application of the most effective and efficient environmental control technology for the Talcher plant,” Ledermann added.

NASL is a joint venture company between NTPC and Alstom.

Wind turbine supply deal with PGE Energia Odnawialna S.A., worth approximately €80 million.

Alstom’s chief executive says the French heavy engineering firm’s agreement to sell off most of its power generation business to U.S. rival General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) will save jobs and protect France’s national interests.

The $17 billion deal was agreed over the weekend after weeks of international negotiations that reached the highest levels of French politics. The government was worried that the GE takeover would cause layoffs and hand foreign owners too much influence over a major industrial player – especially one like Alstom, which makes power plant equipment and pioneered TGV high-speed trains.

Alstom CEO Patrick Kron said Monday on Europe-1 radio that the deal with GE “is a combination of Alstom’s qualities and GE’s economic strength.”

After the deal is completed, Kron will be left running the company’s train, tram and railway signaling business, which accounts for around a quarter of the group’s total sales and operating profit. GE will take over Alstom’s money-spinning gas turbine business, while the two companies keep equal stakes in the small renewable energy and power grid businesses.

The French state will also buy a stake in the new rump Alstom from construction giant Bouygues SA.

Kron and GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt will visit an Alstom plant on Tuesday to talk with workers about the deal, which still needs final approval by regulators and workers’ representatives. Immelt has come to France several times to meet with government officials since GE first made its takeover bid in April.

Alstom SA’s board approved GE’s offer on Saturday, after GE promised to create jobs and improved its offer, and the government withdrew its long-held opposition. Germany’s Siemens and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had presented a rival combined offer but failed to win over Alstom’s board.

For GE, the deal is part of its new focus on building and servicing industrial equipment such as aircraft engines, power-plant turbines and oil and gas drilling equipment. The U.S. company sold its remaining interest in NBC Universal last year as part of the shift.

A consortium of Alstom and Saft have been awarded a contract by EDF group to provide an initial energy storage system.

The consortium will contribute to the EDF’s demonstration on a megawatt scale for frequency regulation using a lithium-ion battery storage system.

Under the contract, the Alstom-Saft consortium will develop 1MW/30min energy storage and conversion system, using a container of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, capable of regulating the frequency of the grid.

Saft’s Intensium Max 20M storage system and Alstom’s MaxSine eStorage solution wil be integrated and installed on EDF R&D’s experimental Concept Grid, designed for the development of grids and smart electrical systems.

Alstom Grid senior vice-president of smart grid & HVDC Patrick Plas said the battery energy storage system is part of the Nouvelle France Industrielle project, which was launched by the French government in 2013.

“At the cutting edge of smart grid and power transportation infrastructure optimisation technologies, Alstom Grid is contributing its technological expertise to the excellence of the French and European energy industry,” Plas said.

Located on the EDF site of Les Renardières in the south of Paris (Seine-et-Marne region), the storage system and the power converter will be delivered in late 2014.

Saft energy storage activity director François Bouchon said: “With our international experience in the integration of renewable energies especially for networks in the Paris area, this innovative experiment will demonstrate the added value of a battery storage system and the performance of Li-ion technology in this promising sector.”

Alstom delivered its e-terra energy market management solutions on time for Southwest Power Pool’s (SPP) day-ahead and real-time integrated marketplace. The new market system combines 16 separate energy entities (consisting of investor-owned utilities, public power, municipalities and electric cooperatives) in the southwestern region of the U.S., into one.

These entities manage energy resources, and ensure that there is sufficient power generation at any time to reliably supply electricity. The new system is expected to realize up to $100 million in annual net benefits.

SPP is a regional transmission organization (RTO) that operates the power grid in nine states, serving 15 million customers in the southwestern region of the U.S. Its new marketplace will optimize energy reserve sharing, providing member utilities access to more diverse power generation resources. It will also facilitate the reliable integration of the region’s vast renewable resources, including 90 GW of potential wind generation.

Signed in May 2011, Alstom deployed its e-terra 3.0 suite of applications with market operations and settlements technology, to solve complex energy scheduling and massive financial calculations with minimal resources. The same software is already used in other regional US markets to handle over 1,000 terawatt hours and $40 billion of energy transactions per year.

The project also included an upgrade of Alstom’s network modeling and energy management systems, helping SPP to better manage reliability and outages across the region.

Alstom has received two contracts for the modernisation of two hydro power plants in the Canton Glarus and the Canton Valais, Switzerland, worth more than €9m.

Under the first contract, Alstom will upgrade the exciters and discharges of the 37.5MWA hydro generators units 1 and 2 in the Löntsch power plant located in the Canton Glarus for Axpo Power.

The contract scope includes the conversion of the excitation system for brushless regulators, replacing of voltage transformers and circuit breakers with enclosed switchgears and the installation of fully insulated shockproof busbars for the discharges.

The contract includes consecutive processing of machinery, which is scheduled to be completed during the middle quarters of 2015 and 2016 respectively.

With an average annual power generation of 120 million kWh, the Löntsch power plant uses the water of Lake Klöntal fed by a catchment basin of 82km² in the Glarus Alps (central Switzerland).

As part of the second contract, Alstom will replace the four rotors and poles on the Sécheron machines at the Nendaz power plant in Valais for Grande Dixence and Hydro Exploitation.

Alstom Switzerland and Germany sales and project management service head Christoph Ortmanns said, “This order endorses our strategy to support customers with a full services and retrofit offering to secure operational reliability and to optimise their asset management throughout the plant’s lifespan.”

Alstom has commissioned its Uri II hydropower project in India’s Jammu and Kashmir province.

The 240 MW plant, comprised of four 60 MW units, is located on the river Jhelum near Uri, in the Baramulla district. It uses downstream water discharge from the 480 MW Uri I hydropower plant.

Synchronization of Uri II’s four Francis vertical turbines was completed in phases, Alstom said, with units 1 and 3 synchronized in September 2013 and unit 2 in November 2013. Unit 4 was synchronized in February 2014.

The project was challenging due to limited water availability during commissioning and difficult terrain, Alstom said.

Developer NHPC Ltd awarded Alstom the Uri II contract in 2007.  The scope of work included turnkey execution of the electromechanical package comprising hydro turbines, generators and auxiliaries, according to the company.

Frederic Teyssedou, unit managing director of Alstom Hydro India, said, “Following the successful execution, this project is certainly amongst major references for Alstom Hydro in India. The team overcame the challenges presented by the project and worked relentlessly to stick to the timelines. The completion of the project and satisfaction of our customer is testimony of the efforts and commendable work done by the team.”

Alstom inaugurates its first hydropower global technology center in Latin America in Taubaté in São Paulo State, Brazil.

This new center is an extension of the existing hydropower industrial site of Taubaté, with almost 2,000 employees. The GTC itself represents an investment of nearly $10 million, with 15 employees dedicated.

Alstom aims to support Brazil’s increasing power generation needs, developing Kaplan power plants, designed for low head applications, between 15 and 60 meters. These plants are able to adapt to river flow variations, thus allowing the energy production throughout the year, both in flood and dry seasons. Brazil accounts for 45 percent of the future worldwide Kaplan market for new-build power stations.

The new technology center reinforces a global network of centers based in Grenoble (France), Birr (Switzerland), Baroda (India), Sorel-Tracy (Canada) and Tianjin (China); and will thus contribute to the development of technological solutions for projects all over the world, in particular, in Latin America, meeting the specific needs of the region.

It will have the complete hydro product technical expertise in a single location (turbines, generators, control, hydro-mechanical equipment and balance-of-plant, as well as services for hydro plants). The centre will take advantage of the existing manufacturing expertise of the Group, and local industrial facilities of Taubaté site. It will include a state-of-the-art test rig for turbine scale models. It will benefit from important partnerships with Brazilian engineering companies, institutes, and universities, such as Unifei (Federal University of Itajubá), ITA (Aeronautics Technological Institute) and Unesp (State University of São Paulo) for future funding of doctor’s and master’s degrees related to the hydro market.

Alstom has installed its mammoth Haliade 150-6 MW offshore wind turbine at the Belwind site off the Belgian coast.

The turbine is the largest installed in sea waters. It has a rotor diameter of 150 metres and blade lengths of 73.5 metres. It will yield 15 per cent more power than existing offshore wind turbines, or enough to supply around 5000 households, Alstom claims.

The first Haliade 150-6MW obtained an IEC power performance measurement after three months of performance measurements at Alstom’s test site at Le Carnet, France. Now the company is planning for serial production.

Alstom has signed a contract to supply 240 Haliade turbines for three offshore wind farms owned by a consortium led by EDF. Alstom has confirmed that it will set up four French manufacturing facilities for nacelles, generators, blades and towers. The first stone of the nacelle factory was laid in early 2013.

In early May Alstom also announced that it is part of a team that has received a $47m grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) for phase two of the Virginia Offshore Wind Technology Advancement Project (VOWTAP) led by Dominion Virginia Power. Alstom’s contribution to the project includes the completion of front end engineering design, installation and testing of two Haliade 150-6MW turbines approximately 24 miles off the Virginia coast.