As part of ENMAX’s commitment to operational excellence, the ENMAX Energy team completed a combustion turbine upgrade at its Calgary Energy Centre during a planned maintenance event in 2022. The upgrade resulted in a 2.2 per cent improvement in plant efficiency and a 2 per cent decrease in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity.
A significant part of the maintenance included upgrading the combustion turbine rotor with one capable of operating at a higher temperature while allowing more airflow through the turbine. The impacts of the upgrades were immediate with the facility adding more than 20 megawatts (MW) of new generation, achieving a new Calgary Energy Centre output record of 334 MW.
Calgary Energy Centre is one of the most efficient and reliable combined-cycle power plants in Canada, raising the bar for other dispatchable generation facilities across the country. Facilities like this provide baseload power for the Alberta electricity grid and enable the integration of renewable assets by providing a backstop for the variability of wind and solar generation. While natural gas is one of the lowest carbon emitting fossil fuel options available for power generation, ENMAX continues to work to find incremental, step change and next-gen order of magnitude improvements aimed at reducing its GHG emissions intensity.
