Jun 29 2010
Alstom has inaugurated its turbine manufacturing facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The global major’s new facility is meant to serve the North American nuclear power generation and fossil fuel market.
This facility will produce large turbo generators, gas turbines, steam turbines and related equipment as well as retrofit present steam turbines with advanced technology. The Chattanooga-facility is the resultant of a $300-million investment, while eventually creating around 350 jobs.
The Chattanooga factory has been incorporated with a balancing facility that enables it to produce the world’s largest turbines. In addition, turbo generator components are also likely to be produced. The sizes of these components have particular relevance in the nuclear industry, especially for retrofitting present equipment in order to increase its efficiency. Chattanooga, with excellent access to rail, road as well as waterways, is an ideal place for manufacturing large power generation equipments mainly because of its centralized location in the nation.
The Alstom facility has been expanded according to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification requirements. For green buildings with high performance levels, this gold certification represents a U.S. benchmark. Some of the green building features incorporated into the building include collection of rain water for landscape irrigation, improvement of HVAC system efficiency by recovering process heat, reduction of electricity usage for lighting through the use of skylights, installation of insulated roofs as well as sidings and the re-usage of demolition debris.
Source: http://www.alstom.com