Alstom, a world leader in power generation technology, today celebrated the first shipment of a GT24 gas turbine from its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This major milestone signifies the ongoing ramp-up of Alstom’s manufacturing activities in Chattanooga, and the company’s ability to serve growth in the North American natural gas market with a domestic production center and growing supply chain.

“The natural-gas fired power generation market in the USA is forecasted to grow substantially in the next years,” commented Patrick Fetzer, Regional Vice President of Alstom’s gas power plant business in North America. “Our investment in Chattanooga is a reflection of our confidence in the U.S market and our first gas turbine shipment marks the readiness of this facility to become a manufacturing hub for Alstom gas turbines in the U.S.”

The GT24 leaving Chattanooga today will sail via barge down the Tennessee River. Alstom’s customer, ACS Cobra, will take possession of the unit in New Orleans for transportation to its final destination – Mexico’s El Sauz CFE combined cycle power plant. In 2011, Alstom was awarded the contract to supply a new GT24 gas turbine to replace three existing gas turbines and retrofit a steam turbine thus extending the lifetime of the El Sauz plant by 25 years and delivering a 20% boost in operational efficiency.

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“The men and women watching this machine leave our factory today have worked hard to ensure our first gas turbine sends a strong signal to the marketplace about Alstom’s U.S. capabilities. They completed this project in a timely fashion using the latest tools and technology,” added Lawrence Quinn, President, Alstom Chattanooga Turbines LLC.

Alstom last year reinforced its offering for the North American natural gas electricity generation market with the introduction of its next generation GT24 gas turbine and KA24 combined-cycle power train. The upgraded GT24 offers industry-leading operational flexibility, with the capability of producing in a 2-on-1 configuration an output in excess of 700MW, achieving gross efficiency of more than 60% and a spinning reserve capability that can deliver 450MW in just 10 minutes. This spinning reserve capability makes the GT24 ideally suited for countering the intermittency of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Inaugurated in June of 2010, Alstom’s Chattanooga power systems manufacturing facility provides new and retrofit equipment for nuclear, steam, gas and hydroelectric power plants. The plant represents an investment in excess of $300 million that will create up to 350 high-quality jobs at full capacity.

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