24 March 2009 - Alstom has been awarded a contract worth around EUR500m ($678m) by RWE Power AG to supply two cutting-edge boilers for its Eemshaven coal fired power plant in the Netherlands.

The new hard coal fired units will provide clean, reliable electricity for more than 3m homes and cut CO2 emissions by about 2.5m tonnes per year as compared with older systems.

When completed in 2013, the new 800 MW boilers will operate at ultra-supercritical steam conditions, which means that they will be among the most efficient of their kind worldwide, said the French manufacturer.

Reaching an efficiency of approximately 47 per cent, the units will burn 20 per cent less coal than previous generations to generate the same power while greatly reducing plant emissions, including CO2.

Finally, the new units are designed to co-fire up to 10 per cent biomass, an important renewable energy option. The units can be retrofitted at a later date with equipment used to capture CO2 after combustion.