Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) was planning to build the world’s largest single-site aluminum smelter. Immense amounts of electricity, around 800 megawatts, are required to heat the metal to nearly 1,000 degrees Celsius. Alba’s issue was finding a power plant to provide the energy. General Electric’s (GE) HA-turbines, which set a world record for efficiency last year, will power the world’s largest aluminum smelter in Bahrain.
Despite being brand new, GE’s HA-turbine, set a world record for efficiency. Furthermore, Alba would only consider buying turbine models that had been in operation at least 8,000 hours, or just under a year. To solidify the deal, GE built a digital twin that generated 100 million hours of virtual power plant data. The twin showed how the turbines would react to different situations in the island kingdom.
“We were able to demonstrate that if [the smelter’s] turbines shut down, the effect on Bahrain’s national grid should be minimal and vice versa,” says GE’s Khalid Salem.
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