Clarke Energy’s Australian operation recently completed the commissioning of two additional 3MW gas generators for energy giant Santos at their Wilga Park Power station expansion project near Narrabri, in northwest New South Wales.
This effectively future proofs the power station with a configuration of up to 12 INNIO Jenbacher 3MW gas engines installed across multiple stages. The two additional gas generators increases the capacity of the facility to 18MW , capable of powering around 23000 households from natural, coal seam methane gas from the nearby Bohena and Coonarah Santos gas fields.
One of two 3MW, 20 cylinder gas engines is safely lowered into position
Critically, generating this power from coal gas is far less environmentally harmful than mining and burning the coal for power generation. It also enables Santos to utilise their gas more beneficially for electricity generation, eliminating wasteful flaring and reducing emissions.
The expansion project unlocks the wealth of this clean energy resource to turbo-charge industries to provide more jobs, small business opportunities and community investment for the people of the Narrabri region.
Clarke Energy’s unique solution for the power station was to install 36MW of clean power generation in stages, 3MW units progressively at a time, as gas becomes available. It allows coal gas producers to begin generating with as little as 500 kilowatts and then grow their output to tens of megawatts as their gas comes online.
Clarke Energy’s in-house, pre-engineered solutions continue to deliver highly efficient Jenbacher gas engines and complete turnkey solutions to generate clean power for our many clients’ power stations, ranging from 10MW to 80MW.
Clarke Energy Senior Project Manager Sam Vickery, explains potent value-add we bring to these projects for our clients.
“Our clients, like Santos, choose us as partners because of our unique range of in-house expertise, coupled with Clarke Energy being the distributors for Jenbacher. No other energy company can offer this ‘one-stop-shop’ service. It means we can guarantee efficient performance and availability along with providing a quality installation delivered safely and on time. From an operational aspect, and with a focus on allowing easy access to Clarke Energy’s service engineers for maintenance, we installed our engines in purpose-built, individual enclosures, each with its own engine control compartment. As always, every one of our solutions is custom-designed to the specific project and customer requirements”
Project Manager, Sam Vickery on site at Wilga Park
