Power supply from La Palma

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The power supply of La Palma is generated to over 95% by diesel generators of the power station Los Guinchos in the municipality Breña Alta . Several wind parks and photovoltaic systems also contribute to the island's electricity generation.

Los Guinchos power plant

Energy demand

The electricity demand on La Palma was 254.9 GWh in 2015, of which 246 GWh were generated by the Los Guinchos power plant (96.5%). The annual requirement rose by 4.3% compared to the previous year, whereas that on the other Canary Islands rose by an average of only 1%. The maximum energy demand reached a peak of 43.4 MW on December 24, 2015, 7:38 p.m. The highest peak value to date was reached on December 31, 2011 with 45.9 MW.

Power supply

Fossil power plants

The Los Guinchos power plant is located in the municipality of Breña Alta , in front of the entrance to Santa Cruz. Its total output is 105.3 MW and consists of the output of 10 diesel generators (built between 1973 and 2006) with 4.3 to 12.6 MW and a gas turbine (built in 2004) with 22.5 MW.

Wind turbines

In addition to the power plant output , several wind farms in the municipalities of Garafía , Fuencaliente , Mazo and directly at the airport with a total output of 7 MW (as of 2016) contribute to the generation of electricity. The two wind turbines at the airport represent its main energy source.

In 2012, electricity production from wind sources on the island reached a total of 10,568 MWh. The distribution of the output over the year was relatively uneven, in the months of January to August the monthly average was around 1100 MWh (maximum 1700 MWh) and from September to December it was around 400 MWh per month.

Wind turbines in Fuencaliente
Wind turbines at the airport

Table: Wind energy on La Palma

Data Fuencaliente Juan Adalid, Garafía Manchas Blancas, Mazo Aeropuerto La Palma
Number of replaced wind turbines 5 × 300 kW 7 × 180 kW 6 × 225 kW
Number of renewed wind turbines 3 × 900 kW 2 × 800 kW 3 × 600 kW 2 × 660 kW
Construction date 2012 2003 2002
Manufacturer / type Enercon / E44 / 900 Enercon / E48 / 800 Navantia-Siemens / Bonus Mk-IV Made / AE-46 / I
Rotor diameter / hub height 44 m 48 m 44 m 46 / 43.5 m
Installed capacity 2.7 MW 1.6 MW 1.8 MW 1.32 MW
Equivalent hours / year
in 2008		 1,553 h (18%) 1,162 h (13%)
Annual performance
2009–2016 average 5,500 MWh / a
2017 10,458 MWh / a 5,156 MWh / a
2018 10,773 MWh / a 5,528 MWh / a

Photovoltaic systems

Photovoltaic system in Las Manchas

A first photovoltaic system - built on La Palma in 2007 - is located in the El Remo district of the Los Llanos de Aridane community with an output of 691 kilowatts. It consists of 6 systems with 576 modules and can supply 333 Palmerian families with electricity over the year.

In 2012 the installed capacity of photovoltaic systems was 4.5 MW. The output of 6,187 MWh was distributed relatively evenly over the year - in contrast to wind energy - in the summer months it was around 600 MWh per month and in the winter months around 400 MWh.

Table: Photovoltaic systems on La Palma (the large-scale systems are easy to see in Google Maps)

place Construction year Companies local community Power kW) Photovoltaic modules Area (hectares) Costs (million €)
El Remo 2007 Remo Solar Los Llanos 691 576
Las Manchas 2008 Gamesa Solar El Paso 1000 5000 1.7 6.5
Former tobacco factory JTI 2010 AV Energías Soltaica Dos El Paso 1000
Los Guinchos power plant Los Guinchos Breña Alta 111

Hydroelectric power plant

The only existing hydropower plant in the Canary Islands, El Mulato ( Central hidroeléctrica de El Mulato ), is located in the Los Tilos National Park in the municipality of San Andrés y Sauces . The power station, which was built in 1913, was fed by the Marcos and Cordero springs (about 1,300 meters above sea level) and has a fall height of 526 m (height difference: 936 - 410 m). The plant, which was renovated in the 1950s, generated electricity with two generators of 400 kW each. After a pipe burst, parts of the plant were shut down in 2002. Plans called for an increase in output to 5000 kW, which, however, has not been implemented until today (2017), instead the pipe remained unrepaired.

Network operator

For the power supply on La Palma - as in the entire Canary archipelago - in is monopoly , the Unión Elétrica de Canarias ( UNELCO ) responsible. It was founded in Gran Canaria in 1930 and in 1970 took over the then other large Canarian electricity company Riegos y Fuerzas de La Palma (RIFU). In 1988 it was taken over by the multinational Endesa and renamed Unelco-Endesa in 2002 . Endesa, in turn, was taken over by ENEL in 2007 .

There is no interconnected network between the Canary Islands.

Platform for Nuevo Modelo Energético

The platform for a new model of energy (Px1NME) advocates independence from oil and monopolies by expanding renewable energies, in particular pumped storage , flow hydropower , geothermal , biogas and solar thermal power plants . She also criticizes the outflow of funds from the island to the Italian company Enel . She has an ambivalent opinion about the REE project, the 66 kV overhead line from north to south.

Security of supply

The safe power supply of the island depends largely on the central power supply of the power plant with a share of over 90%. In the past few years, several power plant failures have caused cross-island power outages ( blackouts ):

date Duration of the blackout / affected households root cause Remarks
Wednesday, 09/23/2009 5 h In the substation of the power plant, an operator carried out an unauthorized switching operation contrary to the instructions in the protocol and thereby triggered a three-phase short circuit. Unelco-Endesa was fined 2 mil by the Supreme Court because of the foreseeable faulty switching action . € sentenced.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 / Thursday, December 24, 2009 3000 households affected / 9000 in Puntallana, Garafia and Tazacorte Heavy rain, storm and thunderstorm
04/16/2010 4.5 h, 48,000 households affected When one of the diesel groups was switched off, vibrations occurred in the system, which triggered the power failure. The island hospital and the airport (2 wind turbines) were not affected because they have autonomous energy supply systems.

The Canary Islands Government Council condemned Unelco-Endesa with 3 mil. € for the power failure.

Tuesday, September 4th 2013, 3:13 pm 1 hour in Santa Cruz and Breña Alta, 4.7 hours in 50% of households, 5.5 hours longest downtime. When switching over one of the power plant groups, the supply was interrupted due to a defective switch in a unit. In the past seven months, there have been two other minor power outages.

For the island blackout, Unelco-Endesa was fined 6 mil. €.

12/11/2013 3.5 h Effect of a lightning strike on a medium-voltage line. Unelco-Endesa was fined 6 mil for the island blackout . € threatened.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 3:10 pm 1 hour 40 minutes, of 49,000 households on the island, 5000 were still without electricity at 5 p.m. At the time of the blackout, the electricity demand was 23 megawatts.
Wednesday, December 11th, 2019 40 minutes, almost 20,000 people were affected by the blackout in the communities of Los Llanos de Aridane, Breña Alta, El Paso, Tijarafe and Tazacorte. At 5:30 p.m. there was a fault in the Los Guinchos power plant in Santa Cruz, the cause of which is still being investigated.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La Palma recorded the largest increase in electricity demand in the Canary Islands in 2015 , La Palma ahora, January 22nd, 2016.
  2. ↑ Performance data for diesel and gas turbines , Central Diesel Los Guinchos, November 15, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c Situacion Energetica de La Isla La Palma 2014 , Cabildo Insular de La Palma .
  4. ↑ Electrical energy , La Palma Aktuell, calendar sheet for January 2006.
  5. ↑ Wind power at the Airport La Palma , May 27, 2008.
  6. ↑ The airport of La Palma, pioneer in self-sufficiency with wind energy , September 24th, 2003.
  7. ↑ a b Plan Director de Eficiencia Energética , Servicio de Consultoría y Asistencia Técnica en materia de Eficiencia Energética del Cabildo Insular y de los 14 Ayuntamientos de la Isla de La Palma, September 26, 2017.
  8. ↑ La eólica en España Mapa eólico , Asociación Empresarial Eólica, La potencia instalada a 31 de diciembre de 2016.
  9. ↑ Sustituyen los siete molinos de Juan Adalid por dos que más energía producen eólica , Diario de Avisos, October 1st 2012th
  10. ↑ Manchas Blancas , The wind power, September 21, 2017.
  11. ↑ Manchas Blancas wind farm ( Memento of the original from January 22, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Diario de Avisos, March 25, 2003. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archivo.diariodeavisos.com
  12. ↑ Pliego para la contratación denominada “Servicios de operación y mantenimiento del Parque Eólico Manchas Blancas (2ª fase), sito en La Caldereta, TM de Villa de Mazo, La Palma” , Instituto Tecnológico de Canarias, 2017 ( contract for the "operation and Maintenance of the Manchas Blancas wind farm (2 phase), in La Caldereta, TM from Villa de Mazo, La Palma ).
  13. ↑ Fuencaliente , The wind power, September 21, 2017.
  14. ↑ Juan Adalid , The wind power, September 21, 2017.
  15. ↑ Aeropuerto La Palma , The wind power, September 21, 2017.
  16. ↑ Eólica-La Palma-Endesa wind farms , Wind Energy Business Association, August 27, 2008.
  17. ↑ SERVICIOS DE OPERACIÓN Y MANTENIMIENTO DEL PARQUE EÓLICO MANCHAS BLANCAS (2ª FASE) , June 17, 2017.
  18. ↑ In 2017 Endesa generated over 15,000 MWh of wind power on La Palma , EL APURON, March 15, 2018.
  19. ↑ Endesa wind farms on La Palma produced 4% more energy in 2018 , EL APURON, January 9, 2019.
  20. ↑ First photovoltaic system on La Palma , Mundoenergía Agencias on August 29, 2008.
  21. ↑ El Remo photovoltaic system
  22. ↑ Las Manchas photovoltaic system , Inauguran la mayor planta solar ligada a la red eléctrica insular, El Dia, October 18, 2008.
  23. ↑ Photovoltaic system in the old JTI , En marcha la planta de energía fotovoltaica en la antigua JTI, Canarias7, 23 August 2010.
  24. ^ Instalación solar fotovoltáica de 1 MW
  25. ↑ Central de Endesa photovoltaic system in Los Guinchos
  26. ↑ El Mulato hydropower plant , La Palma ahora, April 2, 2013.
  27. ^ La Plataforma por un Nuevo Modelo Energético considera la central hidroeléctrica El Mulato “irrenunciable”. In: La Palma Ahora. March 21, 2016 (Spanish).;
  28. ↑ Power failure on La Palma, 23 September 2009 , Canarias Ahora, 17.11.2015.
  29. ↑ La Palma is struggling with power failure of December 24th, 2009 , Spain news and information, December 24th, 2009.
  30. ↑ The government condemns Unelco with 3 million for the power failure on La Palma in 2010 , Europa Press, 15.12.2011.
  31. ↑ Third total failure of the energy supply in four years , Wochenblatt SL, September 4, 2013.
  32. ↑ La Palma for hours without electricity , La Palma 24, 8 September 2013.
  33. ↑ La Palma power failure on the entire island 11.12.2013 , europapress / islas canarias, 26 December 2017.
  34. ↑ Dos horas sin luz en la Isla Bonita por un cero energético , canarias7, March 21, 2018.
  35. ↑ Blackout on La Palma , La Palma 24, 13 December 2019.