ACCIONA incorporates 1,100 MW of client capacity into its Renewable Energy Control Center

ACCIONA’s Renewable Energy Control Center (CECOER) manages the company’s installations and those of other developers it represents. In the first trimester of 2017 it incorporated 1,104 megawatts (MW) into its client portfolio in the form of installations belonging to the companies Eolia Renovables (633 MW) and Grupo Vapat (471 MW).

The service provision contracts with these companies, formalized through ACCIONA Green Energy Developments, take the renewable energy capacity managed by the CECOER to 12,883 MW. Of this figure, 69% corresponds to installations owned by ACCIONA Energía and the remaining 31% to other developers.

In the case of Eolia, the CECOER will act as a control center for wind farms totaling 564 MW and photovoltaic plants with an overall capacity of 69 MW.

The contract with Grupo Vapat covers wind power installations in Spain totaling 471 MW.

“We are grateful to our clients for putting their trust in ACCIONA as a broker with the electric power system and as their representative in the market, through highly technical management aimed at optimizing the performance of their facilities”, said ACCIONA Green Energy Director Santiago Gómez Ramos.

Santxo Laspalas, Director of Operations Control of ACCIONA Energía, also expressed his satisfaction for these new contracts. “They confirm the high level of competitiveness and efficiency of this control center in the management of renewable installations in any part of the world”.

Safe and reliable integration

Located in ACCIONA Energía’s head office in Sarriguren (Navarra, northern Spain) and with branches in Chicago and Mexico City, the CECOER carries out the real-time management of 294 wind farms containing 7,892 turbines of 13 manufacturers and more than 50 different models. It also manages a range of plants: 80 hydropower, 24 photovoltaic, 6 CSP and 5 biomass, plus 269 transformer substations in 18 countries on the five continents.

The CECOER carries out essential functions for the smooth operation of the installations it supervises, together with the integration of renewables-based energy into the electric power system.

In the case of Spain, it sends real-time data to the grid operator (Red Eléctrica de España - REE) on the energy produced at any given time, plus a production forecast for the following hours – among other technical parameters – and manages the operational instructions and requirements issued by REE in order to maintain the stability of the grid.

It also helps with the management of the supply and sale of energy to the wholesale electricity market, and immediately detects any incidents that may occur in the installations under its supervision, solving 55% of them remotely.

A pioneer of its kind, the control center employs 70 people to cover its 24/7 operation for 365 days a year. A giant screen consisting of 12 back projection cubes (each one measuring 70 inches) is the most visible part of a sophisticated technical set-up involving 20 servers and more than 100 pieces of computer and telecoms equipment.