Israel Electric Corporation's high committee on tenders, chaired by board member Dan Alman, yesterday approved the purchase of three 370-Megawatt gas turbine units from Siemens. The total cost for the three combined-cycle units is about $330 million. IEC is negotiating the purchase of a fourth unit from General Electric.
After repeated delays, the IEC's professional tenders committee, headed by VP David Cohn, recommended awarding the gas turbine contract to Siemens, whose bid came in $30 million lower than that of GE. The delay in announcing the winning bidder was due to labor opposition, the IEC workers' council claimed. Management, however, attributed the delay to political pressures from the American government, which lobbied for the GE bid.
The Electric Corp's CEO, Ya'akov Rosen, said that the company is working on integrating additional power units based on natural gas as part of its plan "to answer the growing demand for electricity and to bring the reserves for electricity production, which reached a zero point last summer, to the accepted levels of the Western world." He added that this plan is also dependent on the timely addition of private producers to Israel's electricity generating capacity.
The Siemens gas turbine units are fired by a combination of natural gas and diesel fuel, and comply with emission standards set by the Ministry of Environment.
