News from IGEM FEDS
Technical visit to CLP Black Point Power Plant
Highlights:
A technical visit jointly organized by IGEM Far East District Section (IGEM-FEDS) and HKIE Gas & Energy Division (HKIE-G&E) was held on 29 April 2017 to CLP black point power plant. Around 30 participants joined the tour.
Black point, owned by the Castle Peak Power Company Limited, is one of the world’s largest gas-fired combined-cycle power station with ultra low-sulphur diesel as backup fuel source. It is located in the New Territories region of Hong Kong and started operating in 1996 to employ natural gas for power generation. Natural gas is a relatively clean energy source. Compared to other fossil fuels, it emits far less sulphur dioxide (SO2) and respirable suspended particulates (RSP) during power generation. Natural gas is supplied to Black Point from Yacheng 13-1, an offshore field near Hainan island of China. It is transported from there across the South China Sea to Black Point through a 755km pipeline which is the world's second largest subsea system according to the Yacheng sponsors.
Black point has total eight gas-fired generation units for 2500MW gross capacity. To extend the thermal efficiency, Combined Cycle Gas Turbine(CCGT) technology is now applied in the eight gas-fired generation units. CCGT consists of a gas turbine and a steam turbine. When natural gas is burned in the gas turbine to generate electricity, the heat exhausted from the gas turbine is captured and transported to heat up water in a boiler. As a result, steam is produced to drive the steam turbine for power generation.
In the visit, participants have opportunity to not only know the history of natural gas power generation in Hong Kong, but also understand the system design and working principles of high efficient power generation. On behalf of IGEM-FEDS and HKIE-G&E, we would like to express our gratitude to CLP Holdings Limited for their guidance in the visit.
