Tuesday, October 10, 2023. While a large part of the Spaniards were preparing their suitcases to enjoy one of the great long weekends of the year, the alarms went off in the control room of the Spanish electrical system.
The production of wind energy was at a minimum throughout the day, the solar energy allowed us to save the central hours of the day, but not even the production of electricity from the gas plants at their maximum power managed to supply the sufficient megawatts of light that Spain demanded. that day. “Red Eléctrica paralyzed exports and even had to import energy. The situation was similar to what occurred on October 4, 2022, but without the tensions of the war,” explains Óscar Barrero, partner in the energy sector at the consulting firm PwC, during the presentation of the report Past, present and future of the power plants. combined cycle thermal plants, published by the Naturgy Foundation.
“This is a situation of stress in the electrical system that is not common because low renewable production, the maintenance of many gas plants and high demand do not usually occur at the same time,” points out the report, which details the stressful moments of 2022 and the story of this year.
These specific events may cease to be so in the coming years. Combined cycle plants, which use gas to produce electricity, are not 100% operational. Some due to scheduled maintenance work and others due to different failures in its operation. Spain has an installed power of 24 gigawatts (GW) of combined cycles. Only 21 GW are in effective operation and the real power they are capable of supplying does not exceed 17.7 GW.
There is a contradiction that, in a world where the installation of renewables is seeking to triple, gas combined cycles become more essential the more renewables are installed and will become even more so with the planned closures of nuclear power plants.
The latest draft of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) 2023-2030 foresees this growth in renewables up to 193.8 GW, but maintains the current 24 GW in combined cycles. The problem is that since 2002 there has been a 13% reduction in the availability of combined cycles, accentuated in the last three years. “Wear is caused by improper use. They were designed to operate for a long time and not with starts and stops as is increasingly the case,” says Luis Carlos Postigo, head of gas.
The PwC report states that current power plants make an average of 80 startups per year and some up to 200. Added to this wear and tear is the lack of economic incentives to make new investments. “In a system that is already a bit stretched thin this could be a problem in the future. Because the plants are going to need more maintenance and current legislation does not contemplate remuneration for this,” says Óscar Barrero.
Now, gas plants are financed in proportion to the megawatts of electricity generated. The needs of the system lead them to generate less MW but to have an increasingly strategic availability. “Capacity markets are critical; If we want to have the support of combined cycles in the face of the deployment of renewables and the requirement is to be available, this must be compensated,” says José Luis Gil, director of regulation at Naturgy, who sees it as positive that the Government has put out a payment mechanism for that availability. The text provides for a fixed remuneration, but the sector demands that it be paid for that availability.
The move is on your side. In the last year, two rulings have supported Naturgy in closing these types of plants if they are not profitable, without the need, as until now, to obtain express authorization from the Government.