Sagunto (Valencia), December 13 (EFECOM). – The multinational energy company Naturgy has opened a remote control center in Sagunto (Valencia) from which it operates its 17 combined cycle power plants in Spain, a pioneering project worldwide in which it has invested around 8 million euros.
Located at the company’s combined cycle power plant in Sagunto, the center allows the monitoring and operation in real time of all these plants, which have a total capacity of 7.4 GW and will contribute to the system this year with a production of around 15 TWh, equivalent to the consumption of 4.5 million households.
These systems provide a crucial service for the security of supply in Spain and played a prominent role in the reactivation of the Spanish electricity network following the general blackout on April 28th.
This remote control center, which employs about 17 people in addition to the 24 at the headquarters in Sagunto itself, integrates advanced digital tools, monitoring systems and predictive algorithms based on artificial intelligence.
In this way, the multinational group centralizes the coordination of complex processes such as switching on and off of its 17 plants in this facility.
By concentrating the operation of all combined cycles in a single center, Naturgy, the first operator of this type of plant in Spain, can optimize the response in providing critical services to the system in real time.
This remote control center complements the two facilities through which Naturgy manages its renewable electricity: the A Coruña Renewable Control Center, which monitors the operation of wind and photovoltaic farms in Spain and Mexico; and the Ourense integrated control center, responsible for monitoring the hydraulic systems.
The General Director of Naturgy Networks, Pedro Larrea, has assured EFE that the center, located in Sagunto, allows the simultaneous operation of the 17 combined Naturgy cycles in Spain, with the associated benefits.
Naturgy chose Sagunto as the location for this center because it already has an important combined cycle plant there and because the area offers, among other things, good digital communication opportunities.
Larrea added that the Sagunto remote control center is a pioneer in the world “because there is no other company” that has a center that concentrates the operation of such a number of combined cycles – a total of 7,200 MW – “with a significant geographical dispersion and operated from a single point.”
Naturgy began elaborating this project about five years ago and in 2022 began managing the operation of some combined cycles from Sagunto; It then increased the number of plants it controls and has been operating all combined cycle power plants in Spain from various manufacturers such as Siemens, Alstom and General Electric from Sagunto for several months.
Combined cycle power plants are power generation plants that convert natural gas energy into electricity by combining two sequential generation processes through a gas turbine and a steam turbine.
Although combined cycles have had moments of very low utilization and even plants that have had to be stopped, they currently play an important role in covering renewable energy sources at times such as early in the morning or after dark, that is, when the sun does not set or the wind stops blowing.
The process of converting natural gas into electricity begins with outside air being compressed under high pressure in the compressor.
From there it is sent to the combustion chamber, where it is mixed with the fuel, and then the combustion gases pass through the gas turbine, where they are expanded. This converts thermal energy into mechanical energy, which is transferred to the shaft.
The gases leaving the gas turbine – at extremely high temperatures, around 600°C – are sent to a waste heat boiler to produce steam.
In this second phase, this steam expands in a steam turbine, which, together with a generator, represents the second stage of electricity generation.
The expanded low pressure steam at the outlet of the steam turbine passes to a condenser where the water, again in liquid phase, returns to the boiler to begin a new steam generation cycle.
This year Naturgy will provide around 120 million euros for the maintenance of its combined bike park, which will add around 2,000 operating hours and around 4,000 starts by the end of the year.
Across Spain, combined cycles provide about 25,000 MW of installed capacity and in October they were the first technology to generate the electricity mix, with 23.6% of the total.
The Sagunto power plant, with an output of around 1,200 MW, is divided into three groups and is one of the most important Naturgy plants of this type in Spain.
Although such plants run on a fossil fuel such as natural gas and therefore produce polluting emissions – albeit three times less than coal-fired power plants – they are also prepared to run on renewable gases. EFECOM
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