POWER June 2011 - 36

POWER POLICY
are operating coal-fired power plants in return
for their use of Spanish coal rather than
imported coal, which is more affordable and
of higher quality. Zapatero was looking to
cushion conditions for tens of thousands of
workers in coal mines, who have been protesting
nonpayment, but as he told the commission,
coal is also necessary to protect the
country from power supply shocks caused by
intermittent generation.
Spain's government is also pouring public
funding into several cleaner coal technologies.
In October 2010, energy firm ELCOGAS
started capturing carbon dioxide from a 14MW
pilot plant built at its 335-MW integrated
gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) facility
at Puertollano. The Puertollano IGCC plant
some 200 km south of Madrid-which began
commercial operation in 1996 with natural
gas and in 1998 with syngas from gasification
of an equal mixture of local coal (with an
ash content of more than 40%) and high-sulfur
petcoke-is one of only five utility-scale
IGCC facilities in the world.
Also under way is the much-watched
Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Technology Development Plant under
construction at Endesa's Compostilla power
plant in Ponferrada. The Spanish utility is collaborating
with research institution CIUDEN
to set up a 30-MWth Foster Wheeler-built
circulating fluidized bed unit and test Foster
Wheeler's Flexi-Burn carbon capture technology.
The unit, which will test burn a wide
range of domestic (mostly anthracite) and
imported coals-as well as biomass-is expected
to start operations by the second half
of 2011. Testing programs are expected to
follow thereafter.
Natural gas, on the other hand, has become
the most significant component of
Spain's power profile. The amount of gas
consumed for power generation depends on
5. No new nuclear. Spain has no plans
to build new nuclear plants. Since the Fukushima
Daiichi emergency, license renewals for
plants like Santa Maria de Garoña, the oldest
in Spain's fleet, have been criticized. Spain's
newest reactor is the 1,045-MW Vandellos 2
(shown here), built in 1988 near Tarragona in
northeastern Spain. Courtesy: Foro Nuclear
the availability of wind and hydropower. In
2010, 68,828 GWh were generated by combined-cycle
gas turbines (CCGT)-23% of
total generation (Figure 4). CCGT installed
capacity surged nearly 10% from 2009 to
2010. However, Spain imports more than
99% of its gas, mostly from Algeria, Nigeria,
and Qatar.
Phasing Out Nuclear
Spain's eight nuclear reactors-accounting for
a total installed capacity of 7.7 GW-produce
a fifth of the nation's power. The sector got its
start in June 1965, when construction began
on the country's first nuclear plant, the Jose
Cabrera Zorita, a pressurized water reactor. In
1971, the 460-MW Santa Maria de Garoña, a
boiling water reactor (BWR), began commercial
operation, followed two years later by the
500-MW Vandellos-1, a gas-cooled reactor.
All three plants were turnkey projects.
In the 1970s, construction began on seven
reactors, but just five were completed. Construction
of five other plants began in the
1980s, but only two were completed (Trillo-1
and Vandellos-2) after the socialist government
imposed a moratorium on new nuclear
in 1983, citing economic reasons. In 1994,
after the Minister of Industry and Energy
proposed a plan in which alternative energy
would phase out nuclear-and vowed to shut
down older plants when they reached the end
of their 40-year lifetimes-five other units
under construction were abandoned.
Spain is planning to add 810 MW of nuclear
capacity through uprates. The Iberdrola-owned
Confrenetes BWR that came online
in 1985 has been uprated four times, taking
it to 1,063 MW or 112% of its original capacity.
Plans to be implemented later this decade
will increase the plant's power to 120%
of original capacity. In March-just a day
before workers began their long struggle to
cool the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi
reactors in Japan-the Spanish government
recommended a 10-year extension for the
operating license of the Confrenetes plant. In
February, Spain's parliament removed a legal
provision limiting nuclear plant lives to 40
years. It remains opposed to new construction,
however.
Since Fukushima, the government is reviewing
key renewal decisions, such as the
highly controversial 2009 decision by the
Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) to renew an
operating license for the country's oldest
plant, the Santa Maria de Garoña. The government
had already shut down Vandellos-1,
the gas-graphite reactor, in the mid-1990s,
after a turbine fire made the plant uneconomic
to repair, and Jose Cabrera in 2006,
after it reached its 40-year limit. Although
CSN said plant owner and operator Nucle36
www.powermag.com
nor
had implemented a €155 million work
program to keep the 40-year Santa Maria
de Garoña serviceable, the current socialist
government-which campaigned on an
anti-nuclear platform-forced the regulatory
body to grant it only a four-year, rather than a
10-year, license, taking it to 2013.
Several reactors' licenses have been approved
since then, including Almaraz 1 and
2, and the 1,045-MW Vandellos 2, the newest
and largest plant of Spain's fleet (Figure 5).
In response to recent pressures to shut down
Garoña, CNE's Antonio Cornado told Agence
France Presse that the question was " not if
Fukushima is similar to Garona " but whether
Japan had the same seismic or tsunami risks
as Spain. " The answer is 'no,' " he said.
Spain's uranium resources are limited to
Salamanca, where the metal was mined from
1974 to 2000, when activities trickled to a
close due to low uranium prices. According
to the World Nuclear Association, most of the
1,600 metric tons of uranium used in Spain
each year are imported from Niger.
Currently, the country stores some 6,000
metric tons of spent fuel at reactor sites.
Though it has no reprocessing plans, the
government has called for construction of
temporary dry storage facilities at the Trillo
nuclear plant and at the now-closed Jose
Cabrera plant, until a longer-term storage
facility can be established. Two options are
being considered for longer-term storage:
the preferred, centralized nuclear spent fuel
and high-level waste storage facility (whose
site selection began in December 2009) and
a deep geological facility. Nuclear waste
management strategies, funded by a 1% tax
on nuclear power revenues, also include research
on extended onsite storage conditions
and advanced recycling options.
Balancing Renewables on the Grid
Spain's management of its transmission system
has blazed a trail for countries looking
for examples of how to balance a national
grid that is fed by a large amount of renewable
generation. The variability of wind generation
in particular-which made up 15%
of the nation's power profile in 2010-keeps
grid operator REE precariously balancing
load. The challenge has recently become
riskier: REE in 2004 warned that trying to integrate
more than 14% of wind power could
significantly increase the possibilities of a
major power cut.
One way REE says it manages large
amounts of renewable power is through
its Renewable Energies Control Centre
(CECRE). Opened in 2007, that pioneering
operational unit within the REE Power Control
Centre is used to supervise and control
sources of intermittent generation. Every 12
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