The US’ GE has been awarded a contract to supply steam turbines for the upgrade of a power plant in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

GE will supply and install two steam turbines, which will be used to convert the Erbil plant from single to combined cycle. It will boost the plant’s capacity by 500MW. The additional capacity will enable the plant to serve 100,000 households.

The client is the Mass Global Investment Company, an independent power producer in Northern Iraq. Turkish contractor Enka Construction & Industry Company has been appointed as the EPC contractor for the plant conversion project.

The combined-cycle plant is scheduled to start commercial service in the second half of 2014, with a planned production capacity of 1,500MW.

Mass Global operates three independent power plants (IPPs) in the Kurdistan region, which currently have a combined capacity of about 3,000MW. All three are planned to be converted to combined cycle. When the conversion of all three plants is completed, the total power generation capacity will increase to 4,500MW.

Mass Global is in the final stages of negotiations with the US’s GE for turbines and Switzerland’s ABB for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for the conversion of the second plant at Sulaimaniyah, which produces 1,000MW. The conversion to combined cycle will raise production capacity to 1,500MW.

The company also plans to begin talks for the conversion of the Dohuk power plant. The plant has seven operational units, producing 875MW, with another unit under construction and planned to come online in July.