Jordan’s Mass Holding has unveiled plans to expand its three independent power projects (IPPs) in Iraqi Kurdistan, adding a further 1,500MW of power capacity through the installation of new generating units and conversion of the plants to combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology.

Mass Holding will add 250MW extra capacity to its 750MW Sulaimaniyeh power plant through the addition of two new units. All six of the original power generation units entered commercial operation earlier this year.

“We are planning to add another two units … we are in discussions with [the US’] GE and [Switzerland’s] ABB for these units,” says Mass Holding’s director of power, Abdul Qader Ahmed. “These are the companies, which supplied the previous power generation units at Sulaimaniyeh and the other IPPs at Irbil and Dohuk.”

“We have a modular contract with these companies, so we don’t discuss the details with them. We just talk about price and time.”

In addition to the expansion of the Sulaimaniyeh power plant, Mass Holding intends to convert each of its simple cycle power plants in Kurdistan to CCGT technology. Mass Holding launched a tender for contractors to convert the Irbil IPP in 2010. The process will add a further 500MW to the 2,250MW IPP. Bids were submitted by France’s Alstom, Germany’s Siemens, GE, Russia’s Power Machines and US/UK company Wood Group.

The company has shortlisted Turkey’s Enka and France’s Alstom for the contract. “We are in final discussions with both, but we have not yet decided which company we will choose yet,” says Ahmed.

“The reason why we are giving special attention to the conversion of the Irbil plant is that this will become the model for Sulaimaniyeh and Dohuk,” says Ahmed. “We intend to convert the Sulaimaniyeh and Dohuk projects to combined cycle too, so we don’t want to repeat [this process] in the same detail for these projects too.”

Converting Sulaimaniyeh IPP will add 500MW power generating capacity to the project and 250MW to the 500MW Dohuk IPP. “We are hoping to create a modular contract with the [chosen] company,” says Ahmed.