Spanish Endesa has begun conversion of the third group of its As Pontes thermal power station in La Coruña, a €275 million project that will see the facility run on imported Indonesian coal rather than local lignite.
Some five million tonnes of coal will arrive annually at new port being built by Endesa in Ferrol.
The transformation of the four units at the 1,400 MW plant will extend its working life by 25 years, reduce CO2 emissions by more than one million tonnes and the amount of ash produced by 1,700,000 tonnes. It will also lower SO2 emissions by 95.5%, NOx by 16.5% and particles by 54.5%, the company says. The conversion process of replacing parts of the boiler and the turbine will adapt the unit so that instead of consuming a mixture of lignite and sub-bituminous coal, it only uses the latter.
The work has been awarded to four main contractors: Foster Wheleer, Duro Felguera, Alstom and Graver.