A steam turbine at Harbin Electric Co Ltd. The company, aiming to boost its market share in China's high-end electric sector, will buy four of GE's gas turbines. [Photo / China Daily]

Move will help develop China's high-end market for electricity, say sector observers

BEIJING - Harbin Electric Co Ltd will purchase four of GE's gas turbines with FlexEfficiency technology, to be used in district heating applications, in a move to further develop in China's high-end electric market.

GE and Harbin Electric (HE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday in which they agreed to jointly provide equipment and design ideas for gas-fired power plants in the Chinese market. According to the memorandum, HE will buy four Frame 9FB gas turbines from GE by the end of 2013 and use them in the future projects

However, HE has not yet worked out the details of the projects, said Wu Weizhang, executive director and president of Harbin Power Equipment Company Ltd.

Wu said that the company will work hard to expand the market for the new technology and that he is confident about the return on their investment.

"There are market space and potential customers for our products in China," he said. "And our orientation is high-end products."

"As the biggest wind power market in the world, China plans to expand in natural-gas power generation as well, which will bring us the ideal business opportunities for our new FlexEfficiency technology," said Paul Browning, president and CEO, thermal products, for GE Power & Water.

Browning said GE is looking worldwide for new partners to bring the technology to the global market and China will be the first of four countries to have this application.

"China will become the biggest natural gas power market in the world," he said. "We have a long history with HE and we are excited about this cooperation."

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The biggest problem for wind power is fluctuation, which makes the generation process more expensive. GE's new technology aims at solving the problem by rapidly adjusting to fluctuations in wind and solar power.

Browning said the new technology will be able to integrate more renewable resources into the power grid in a stable and efficient way, which is essential for the Chinese market because the country is making efforts to increase the percentage of clean energy in its energy consumption.

GE has been cooperating with HE since 2003, when it provided gas turbines for projects in China. In 2010, GE and HE formed a joint venture to develop in the wind power sector.

"We will expand our cooperation with GE, and the combination of HE's steam turbine and GE's FlexEfficiency gas turbine technology is strong," Wu said.