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Stephane Cai, head of Alstom Power’s Turbine Unit in Chattanooga, spoke to Trend about the flagship facility and its role in establishing the city as a power generation hub. Using the most advanced technology available in the industry, the 350,000-square-foot operation will manufacture the world’s largest steam and gas turbines for power plants.
Q. Alstom is a global leader in power generation. You have plants and projects all over the world. Why did you choose Chattanooga for your new $300 million manufacturing facility that will create 350 new jobs by 2010?
A. Alstom is present in over 70 countries worldwide, and our strategy is to expand our industrial footprint to all major markets. North America has the world’s largest installed power generation capacity, which makes it the largest market for equipment retrofit and services, as well as a significant market for new equipment to meet growth in demand. We came to Chattanooga thanks to the city’s central location with access to the Tennessee River and also because the existing infrastructure at Alstom’s former Combustion Engineering site is ideally suited for large equipment manufacturing.
Q. At the former Combustion site Alstom has over 500 workers in an operation that focuses on replacement components for coal-fired power plants. How do the two operations complement each other?
A. Alstom is a global leader in clean power technologies. Our boiler operation in Chattanooga supplies equipment for the retrofit and upgrade of coal-fired power plants, making them cleaner through improved efficiencies and reduced emission levels. The new turbine plant brings other Alstom core products, such as zero-emission nuclear steam turbines and hydro turbines, as well as high-efficiency gas and steam turbines. Alstom’s Chattanooga operations showcase the company’s broad clean power product portfolio.
Q. What will you be manufacturing in the new plant?
A. The new plant will manufacture core components of the turbines (rotors and casings) and turbo-generators (e.g., stators). It will also assemble and test our products before shipment. The new facility, which is equipped with most advanced manufacturing technologies, is capable of producing and testing the world’s largest steam turbines, the Alstom-designed ARABELLE™ steam turbines for nuclear power plants (unit size up to 1,700 MW).
Q. You also will be manufacturing new steam turbines for fossil applications. How will these steam turbines reduce greenhouse gases generated by coal-powered plants?
A. Alstom has been designing and manufacturing steam turbines for over 100 years. Our engineers continually improve the efficiency of our equipment for fossil applications using advanced 3D blade profiles or new materials able to withstand higher steam temperatures. Our turbines today offer significantly higher efficiency than the turbines of the installed fleet, particularly those of aging power plants in developed parts of the world. When our customers decide to replace an old turbine with a more efficient one or to add a more efficient new power plant to their fleet, they end up burning less coal than they do today to produce the same amount of power. Obviously, the less coal you burn, the less greenhouse gases you generate.
Q. Your new steam turbines will also be used in building nuclear plants. The Nuclear Energy Institute expects to see a revival in nuclear power, projecting the creation of at least 62,000 construction jobs in the next decade and the investment of roughly $8 billion in new plants by 2012. What spurred this so-called “nuclear renaissance”?
A. The environment has become a key driver in the power generation sector, and many major players are engaged in reducing greenhouse gases generated by the industry. It makes good economic and environmental sense to consider nuclear power since it is a safe, reliable, zero-emission source of energy. The U.S. has the world’s largest nuclear fleet, which represents a large retrofit market for Alstom as most of the plants are going through re-licensing. The new manufacturing capacity we bring to Chattanooga will meet the growing demand for both new plants and the retrofit of existing plants.
Q. Why is Chattanooga well-positioned to be a hub of the power generation industry?
A. Location and logistics. Chattanooga is centrally located with excellent road, rail and waterway connections. Over 80% of North America’s existing or planned nuclear power plants can be accessed from the Tennessee River. This access is particularly important, as the very large components for nuclear power plants will be shipped using waterways as primary transportation.
Q. You are seeking LEED certification for the plant. At what level? And what are some of the green features you’ve incorporated in the building.
A. Along with our business positioning as a clean power technology provider, Alstom has set ambitious sustainability targets for its own operations, particularly for the new plants we are building in different countries. Our new plant in Chattanooga has been designed to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s standards for LEED Gold certification. Green features include skylights to maximize the use of daylight in our shops and offices, waste heat recovered in the centralized HVAC system, insulated sidings to improve building energy efficiency and rain water capture for irrigation of the landscape.
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