THE Switzerland-based leading power and automation technology group ABB has won a contract from South Korea’s Hanwha Engineering & Construction Corporation to extend a substation at a power plant at Yanbu. ABB said the contract is worth about $17 million.

The project entails extending a gas-insulated switchgear-based substation to integrate two steam turbine units at the Yanbu gas and oil-fired plant on the Red Sea coast in Al Madinah province. The plant is owned and operated by the Power & Water Utility Company for Jubail and Yanbu (Marafiq) .

ABB says that it will design, supply, install and commission the extension project at the 380/115-kilovolt substation. Key products to be supplied under the contract include high-voltage gas-insulated switchgear, a range of circuit breakers, and the control, protection and telecommunication equipment, ABB says.

The two 250-MW units will raise the plant’s total output to about 1,560 MW, adding to generating assets that include nine 60-MW gas turbines and four 130-MW steam turbines. The extension project is scheduled for completion by 2012, ABB says.

Marafiq awarded the SR2.7 billion ($720 million) turnkey contract for the 500-MW expansion project to Hanwha in 2009. South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Company got a $244-million subcontract for the boilers, steam turbines and other equipment.

The 500-MW extension forms the first phase of a wider project being undertaken at Yanbu by Marafiq together with the state-controlled Saudi Electricity Company and the Public Investment Fund (PIF). Marafiq is owned by the state energy company Saudi Aramco, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, and PIF.

The company has also won orders worth over $30 million to execute substation projects for the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), the country’s national power transmission and distribution operator.

ABB will design, supply, install and commission two new 132/13.8 kilovolt (kV) substations in the Al-Kharj area and in the adjoining Second Industrial City in the South-East of Riyadh. The growing cities were established in an effort to broaden and diversify the country’s industrial base and reduce its dependence on oil.

“These substations will enhance power capacity to meet growing electricity demand and industrial development in the region,” says Oleg Aleinikov, head of ABB’s substations business, a part of the company’s Power Systems division. “They will also help to improve grid reliability and power quality.”

 ABB’s turnkey project scope includes delivery of key products such as high- and medium-voltage gas and air insulated switchgear, transformers, auxiliary systems and cables.

ABB will also supply the Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) system as well as the automation, control, protection and communication systems, compliant with the international IEC 61850 standard to enable remote monitoring and control of power assets located at multiple sites from the central region control centre.

The substations will also be equipped with capacitor banks, to reduce electricity losses and enhance the stability and quality of power supply by improving the network’s power factor, which is an indicator of the usable power available in the grid. The projects are scheduled for completion by 2014.

ABB is the world’s leading supplier of turnkey air-insulated, gas-insulated and hybrid substations with voltage levels up to 1,100 kV.