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Not all Power Stations are Stationary

January 29, 2014
Massive steel girders, pieced together like a giant Meccano set around a complex array of technology and turbines are setting sail on a remarkable journey this weekend.
Pieced together in Avenza on Italy’s North Western coastline, they’re the final two of five industrial modules that GE Oil & Gas is supplying for the Chevron-operated Gorgon Project currently under development in Western Australia.

A special ceremony was held at the Marina di Carrara Port on January 20 to to celebrate the completion and shipment of the last two modules, which are en route to Western Australia.

But before the technology will get to work, these giant gas plant modules will be required to conquer two logistical challenges.

The first was the trip from the assembly yard to ship. Each module is 50 metres high, 25 metres long, 21 metres wide and weighs 2,300 tonnes – equivalent to four Airbus A380s. These structures had to weave through the narrow streets of Avenza to the port of Marina di Carrara on specially designed trucks.

/><br /> <em>The specs in action. See how an average height man stacks up against the Power Module.</em><br /> <br /> <address> </address><address> </address>They’ve past the first hurdle, so the modules are now embarking on an ocean journey, 7,374 kilometres from the port to an unlikely place – Barrow Island, 60 kilometres off WA’s North Coast.<br /> <br /> Once they arrive after more than a month at sea, a complex installation process will begin.<br /> <br /> The five modules will produce electricity for the Gorgon’s development and production operations and for operating the LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant on Barrow Island. Each module built for the Gorgon project generates 130 MW, sufficient for supplying power to 40,000 homes.<br /> <br /> The modules will form part of an array of equipment that GE is supplying to the Gorgon Project from various parts of the world, including machinery for the subsea operations, LNG cooling process, carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration and energy production. GE technology will play a pivotal role in the CO2 sequestration process, by extracting and then injecting the CO2 into the Dupuy Formation beneath Barrow Island. This will help reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.<br /> <br /> The Greater Gorgon gas fields have sufficient energy to power a city of one million people for 140 years. With about 1.04 trillion cubic metres of discovered resource, the Gorgon Project will supply natural gas to rapidly growing markets like those of the Asia-Pacific region.<br /> <br /> Find out more about the <a href=Gorgon Project.