Bright in Braintree

Two Rolls-Royce Trent 60 gas turbines are now in operation at Braintree Electric Light Department's (BELD) Thomas A Watson Generating Station in the US.

The facility is a non-profit public utility, which has been owned and operated by the citizens of Braintree since it was founded in 1892.  BELD is an average size municipal utility by US standards, with about 15,000 customers - 12,500 residential and 2,500 in the commercial sector.

The plant is able to reach full load in as little as ten minutes. The General Manager, Bill Bottiggi commented: 'We don't have a big technical staff, so we went with the traditional simple cycle technology.'

The two Trent gas turbines are capable of a combined output of 116MW of electricity.