41 / 64
39
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
SEPTEMBER
2016
eloped in South Africa outside of Eskom.
The consortium comprising Ansaldo
Energia and Fata S.p.A. received the Notice
to Proceed (NTP) on engineering, procure-
ment, construction and commissioning
of the projects in September 2013, with
Ansaldo managing civil works, power island
supply, construction and commissioning and
Fata managing engineering, procurement,
construction and commissioning of the BOP
and electro-mechanical installation works
(including cabling, piping, Demi Sys, fire
fighting, HVAC, and substation).
As highlighted by Fata project director,
Italo Ballestrelli, only 22 months after the
contractual Notice to Proceed, the consor-
tium succeeded in respecting the Commercial
Operation Date, with Dedisa unit 1 becoming
the first synchronisation injecting electric
power into the national grid in June 2015.
New Avon Power Plant
OFFICIALLY ONLINE
The independent Avon Peaking Power gas turbine open cycle
power plant near Durban is officially online, its developers
announced at POWER-GEN & DistribuTECH Africa.
The independent Avon Peaking Power gas
turbine open cycle power plant near Durban is
officially online, its developers announced at
POWER-GEN & DistribuTECH Africa.
Addressing the fourth annual
POWER-GEN & DistribuTECH Africa
conference in Sandton, the joint
venture responsible for imple-
menting the 685 MW Avon Peaking Power
Plant said the plant had completed its final
phase of commissioning and reached the
COD milestone recently.
Avon is the second Independent Power
Producer (IPP) project in South Africa by the
joint venture between France’s Engie, South
Africa’s Legend Power Solutions, Japan’s
Mitsui & Co and The Peaker Trust.
The first of the group’s local projects, the
342 MW gas-fired Dedisa Peaking Power plant
in Port Elizabeth, went into commercial oper-
ation last year, selling power to Eskom under
a 15-year power purchase agreement.
The plants are the first large-scale
independent thermal plants to be dev-
“It was an historic moment, because it was
the first thermal electric power generation
into the South African grid made by an IPP,”
noted Elisa Prato, project manager for Fata
S.p.A. “In light of the success of these two
plants we are optimistic about the potential
for future IPP projects through our branch
presence in South Africa.”
“The accomplishment of this mission had
a great strategic relevance for power gener-
ation and for the improvement of the South
African grid stability,” she said.
Both Elisa Prato and Fabio Pelizza,
project manager for Ansaldo Energia, said
while certain challenges had been experi-
enced in the construction and commissioning
of the Dedisa plant, the fact that Dedisa was
located in the Zone 13 of the Coega Develop-
ment Corporation (CDC) Industrial Devel-
opment Zone (IDZ) and close to a port had
worked in the developers’ favour. Effective
project stakeholder management, a holistic
approach to labour project management,
and partnership with engineering resources
in a partnership with the Aurecon Group and
Jones & Wagner had also contributed to the
successful outcome, they said.
>