Black & Veatch has secured a contract from Harbin Electric Company to build three combined cycle power plants in China.

The plants will be constructed in Zhejiang Province, Guangdong Province and the Beijing region, and will have a capacity to produce about 3,000MW of low emissions gas-fired electricity.

Black & Veatch global energy business senior project manager Suqing Wang said the company is entering what many consider to be a golden age for natural gas powered plants and is seeing accelerated advances in China.

"The three plants will feature heavy-duty combustion turbines. The Gaojing combined cycle power plant will deploy a level of combustion turbine technology that has yet to feature in mainland China," he added.

Black & Veatch will also design the auxiliary equipment's technical specifications and installation drawings, and offer turbine package interface engineering support.

While Harbin Electric is commissioning the plants, three major state-owned independent power producers are operating the plants, where the Banshan plant is operated by Huadian Group, Hengqin plant by China Power Investment Group and Gaojing plant by Datang Group.

Black & Veatch global energy business president and CEO Dean Oskvig said the company is seeing more and more adoption of a mix of next generation power generation technologies in China.

"Co-generation is just one technology gathering momentum alongside, for example, advanced wind and solar," he added.