This week, power-systems provider ABB announced that it has won a contract to supply two medium-voltage drives to a water project that will form part of the water-supply system for the north west of England.
The drives will control pumping for the £125m West East Link Main, being built by J Murphy and Sons for United Utilities between Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
Meanwhile, the UK Technology Strategy Board offered support worth £7m to more than 35 British businesses and universities to help them to develop wave- and tidal-energy technologies.
The investment has been allocated through a collaborative research and development funding competition designed to support innovation in this area.
The nine research and development projects will focus on driving down the cost of energy while improving the reliability and performance of wave and tidal-stream energy devices.
Some of the projects will look to enhance the performance of existing devices, while others aim to develop novel breakthrough concepts.
Also in the renewable-energy field, electrical engineering company Siemens reported that it had received an order from energy provider SSE Renewables (SSER) for the supply of 68 wind turbines with a capacity of 2.3MW each, to be installed at the Griffin wind-power farm in the Scottish Highlands.
The scope of supply includes the delivery, installation and commissioning of 68 of Siemens’ 2.3MW turbines, of which 61 will have a 101m rotor and seven will have a 93m rotor.
Siemens will also provide services for turbine operation and maintenance for an initial period of five years.
In an unrelated deal, Siemens’ energy division was awarded $40m (£26m) to engineer and supply an integrated power solution for a natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Siemens will be the main electrical contractor for Abu Dhabi Gas Industries’ (GASCO’s) Ruwais 4th NGL train in Ruwais, UAE, which is scheduled to go into operation in March 2012.
Siemens’ scope of supply includes power and distribution transformers, switchgear, motor-control centres and a power-management system.
The order also includes engineering, installation, commissioning and supervision of the complete electrical equipment.
In other UK news, infrastructure group Balfour Beatty announced that UK construction-services business Mansell has been appointed as one of three contractors to a £220m four-year framework for the London Borough of Hackney and Hackney Homes’ Decent Homes programme.
Mansell’s share of the framework will be worth approximately £73m.
The programme, which will commence in October 2010, will involve investment in existing housing stock and maintenance, including external works and internal modifications to residential properties across Hackney.
Mansell will also manage the specialist supply chain, in collaboration with Hackney Homes.
Also in the UK, telecommunications company BT reported that it had been awarded an extension, worth around €173m (£145m), to its outsourcing contract with Unilever, a supplier of food and personal-care products.
The deal will see BT accelerating technology innovation in services such as unified communications, messaging, supply chain, wireless technology and agile working in more than 100 countries over the next four years.
The scope of the service includes the design, management and operation of a secure, fully integrated end-to-end IT networking infrastructure, delivering data, voice, video and mobility services to around 1,000 sites.
In the defence sector, contractor Raytheon and business-services provider Serco revealed that they had teamed to provide a low-risk, cost-effective solution for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Joint Military Air Traffic Services (JMATS) programme.
Known as Project Marshall, JMATS is a managed service programme spanning 22 years, which requires the delivery and management of network-based services, applications, equipment and training in MoD military airfields, and for deployed operations.
Also in the aviation field, Irish aircraft-leasing company RBS Aviation Capital confirmed that it had ordered 43 Boeing Next-Generation 737-800s, valued at approximately $3.3bn (£2.2bn).
RBS, which is leasing the aircraft to its customers through to 2015, announced last week that it had taken delivery of a 737-800 from Boeing, bringing the number of 737s the company has purchased or financed to 125.
In addition, power-systems provider Rolls-Royce won a $650m (£425m) order from Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, to provide 24 Trent 700 engines to power 11 Airbus A330s.
The company confirmed that the order is backed by a Totalcare long-term service agreement.
Finally, in the UK nuclear-power field, systems and engineering-technology consultancy Frazer-Nash was awarded a five-year framework contract and three work packages by Horizon Nuclear Power, the energy company that aims to develop and operate around 6,000MW of new nuclear-power stations in the UK by 2025.
The framework will initially focus on supporting Horizon’s submissions of Site Licence Applications for the Oldbury and Wylfa sites.
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