Wärtsilä Corporation was awarded an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract in December 2005 for the delivery of a 23.6 MWe combined heat and power plant to Belize Aquaculture Ltd. for a shrimp farm and associated processing plant in Belize, Central America. The contract is valued at approximately $19 million.
Wärtsilä will equip the plant with three 18-cylinder Wärtsilä 32 diesel generating sets, all running on heavy fuel oil. The plant will also have space for a fourth generating set.
Due for delivery in November 2006, the power plant will be installed at the company’s shrimp farm at Blair Atholl estate in the Stann Creek District of Belize. It will initially be dedicated to supplying electricity to the shrimp farm and its associated shrimp processing plant. There is also a future possibility that the plant may be connected to the Belize national grid to sell power to the grid.
In addition, the diesel generating sets will be provided with full waste heat recovery systems to generate steam to be used both for fuel heating and for various uses in the process plant.
The requirements for the power plant were that it should provide a reliable source of electricity for the shrimp farm and processing plant, while using waste heat recovery for cogeneration of steam with high overall plant efficiency.
