ACEA Entrusts GE and Cefla with Its Tor di Valle District Heating Modernization Project in Rome

GE’s Distributed Power business  and Cefla SC today announced they have received an order from Italian utility ACEA Produzione SpA, a subsidiary of ACEA SPA—one of Italy’s principal multiutilities—for GE’s first two 9.5-megawatt (MW) Jenbacher J920 FleXtra gas engines to be deployed in Italy as part of a district heating repowering project in southwestern Rome.

ACEA selected GE and Italian multibusiness company Cefla SC to modernize the existing Tor di Valle cogeneration and district heating plant, with the goal of improving its energy efficiency and reducing its environmental impacts. When the project is completed, the new 19-MW district heating power plant is expected to provide highly efficient thermal power to about 50,000 residential customers in Rome and for other energy-intensive, non-residential purposes.

“The Tor di Valle district heating power plant repowering project demonstrates our continued commitment to pursue our plan to develop, improve and modernize our energy production assets for the benefit of our residential and business customers,” said Giovanni Papaleo, head of ACEA Energy Industrial Area. “We believe that GE’s proven J920 FleXtra gas engine technology and Cefla’s engineering capabilities are perfectly suited to help us meet the new power and district heating and cooling needs of our customers in Rome.”

The project is a turnkey revamping of an existing district heating power plant that serves the southwestern area of Rome. The order consists of two J920 FleXtra combined heat and power (CHP) units plus three auxiliary boilers and associated district heating systems. The engines will produce 19 MW of electrical power and about 15 MW of thermal power, achieving more than 80 percent total efficiency. Three additional gas boilers will produce another 70 MW of thermal power to cover peak heat load demands. The project will include a multiyear service agreement for the two J920 FleXtra engines.

ACEA’s Tor di Valle district heating plant modernization is being designed and developed by the consortium of GE and Cefla. GE will be providing the Jenbacher J920 FleXtra generator sets, related engineering and associated balance of plant equipment. Cefla will develop the engineering aspects of the plant, providing project management, ensuring plant supplies and taking care of installation of the entire plant, including the civil infrastructure.

"This project is a significant step within our plan to develop and grow in the energy sector,” said Roberto Cocchi, Cefla Plant Solutions BU managing director. “It is an important recognition of our capabilities and our system engineering experience, gained over the last 30 years, coming from a major company like ACEA, which is committed to development and innovation, and from GE, one of the world leaders in providing power generation equipment.”

In addition to its first J920 FleXtra order in Italy, GE has also received orders for its most powerful gas engine technology for several new cogeneration projects in Germany and a new grid-stabilization project in the United States. The ACEA Tor di Valle district heating project marks the first time that GE’s J920 FleXtra technology has been selected to modernize an existing gas-fired district heating power plant.

“We are pleased to collaborate with Cefla to demonstrate our project management and distributed power technology capabilities for ACEA’s district heating modernization project in the city of Rome,” said Andreas Lippert, executive engineering leader for GE’s Distributed Power business. “This project showcases the advantages of our J920 FleXtra gas engine technology as more European utilities and municipalities modernize their CHP plants with more efficient, reliable and flexible gas engines to meet increasingly stringent environmental regulations and support the growth of renewable energy on the grid.”