RusHydro unable to get GE equipment to update six plants in Far East, working on redesign

VLADIVOSTOK. Sept 5 (Interfax) - RusHydro has had to redesign projects to modernize six thermal power plants in the Far East because it is unable to receive turbines from U.S. company GE, a member of the company's management board, Roman Berdnikov told reporters.

"We had to redesign based on technical decisions related to the inability to use American turbines that were planned through [Russian Gas Turbines]," Berdnikov said. "The engineering decision has been made. Now the redesign is just being done," he added.

It was reported earlier that RusHydro and power company Inter RAO are holding negotiations on using the equipment of Russian Gas Turbines (RGT), a joint venture between Inter RAO and GE, in projects to modernize RusHydro's thermal power plants in the Far East.

RGT, founded in 2021, has a plant in Rybinsk where it assembles 6FA (about 80 MW) gas turbines using GE technology. Inter RAO and GE planned to work on increasing the joint venture's localization of production and servicing of large-capacity gas turbines in Russia.