Waller Marine, Inc of Houston, Texas will soon launch and christen what will become the world’s largest floating power generation facility when installed at a designated site in Venezuela. The two power barges, which Waller has under construction at the Signal International Shipyard in Orange, Texas, will be transferred from their land based construction locations to the water during the next few days and christened by Venezuelan dignitaries at a ceremony at the shipyard on August 21. The generation facility, initially comprising two Floating Power Plants each installed with a single GE 7FA gas turbine generator, will then be made ready for ocean transport to Tacoa, Venezuela for installation in a prepared basin that will be protected from the sea. The completed plant will generate much needed power to Caracas and surrounding areas.
This event culminates a fast track engineering, procurement and construction program undertaken by Waller to design, construct and deliver the two power barges, each having an output of 171 MW (ISO), within a 180 day period. Constructed to approval and survey of the marine Classification Society, The American Bureau of Shipping, each barge will represent the largest of its kind in the world. This first phase of the facility will surpass the capacity of the Waller designed, 220 MW combined cycle floating power plant installed in India in 2001; currently the world’s largest. Waller is now in the early stages of engineering the second phase of the construction program, a 260 MW steam cycle barge that will be fitted with heat recovery steam generators and a 260 MW steam turbine generator that will increase the total floating generating facility capacity to 600 MW. Additionally Waller has engineered and constructed a 360,000 barrel capacity floating fuel storage barge equipped with an 800 gpm reverse osmosis plant to provide fuel and demineralized water to the facility.
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