MHI has received an order for a steam turbine for the Comanche Unit 3 supercritical-pressure coal-fired power plant to be built near Pueblo, Colorado. The order was placed by Public Service Co. of Colorado (PSCo), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, a major U.S. electricity and natural gas energy company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This marks MHI's first supercritical steam turbine order from the U.S. Delivery is slated for June 2007, and the plant will go into commercial operation in July 2009.
The order was awarded to MHI through Mitsubishi Power Systems, Inc. (MPS), an MHI subsidiary located in Florida. The Comanche Unit 3 will have capacity to generate 750MW of electricity, for supply to the surrounding area / Xcel Energy's residential and business customers in Colorado. MHI's Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery Works will design and manufacture the turbine. The customer will separately consign construction and installation work locally.

Xcel Energy operates in 10 Western and Midwestern states and has an aggregate power generation capacity of approximately 15.3 GW (gigawatt = 1,000 MW), including 15 coal-fired (8.1 GW), 17 natural gas-fired (4.5 GW) and two nuclear (1.6 GW) power plants. PSCo is in charge of operation and management of the existing Comanche Units 1 and 2.
In response to soaring prices of natural gas, the number of projects to construct coal-fired power plants in the U.S. is rapidly increasing. In particular, demand is accelerating for supercritical plants. Supercritical coal-fired power generation provides higher fuel efficiency than generating power at subcritical pressures, and use of higher steam temperatures and pressures is more environmentally friendly. For these reasons, demand for supercritical power generation is increasing not only in the U.S. but in other areas of the world as well.
MHI independently developed supercritical coal-fired power generation technology and has already delivered numerous plants of this kind. Riding on the strength of the latest order, MHI will vigorously conduct plant marketing activities globally, with a special focus on North America, where many supercritical coal-fired power plant construction projects are planned.