A TECHNOLOGICAL BRAIN CONSTANTLY ON THE WATCH
ACCIONA’s Renewable Energy Control Center (CECOER) carries out real-time monitoring of the group’s renewables facilities, which total around 12,000 MW. Located in the offices of the Energy Division in Sarriguren (Navarra, northern Spain), and with delegations in Chicago and Santiago de Chile, it manages data from more than 400 wind farms and hydropower, photovoltaic and CSP plants owned by the ACCIONA Group or other companies in 24 countries on the five continents. As well as power generation plants, it also supervises the operation of 300 transformer substations.
The CECOER records more than 500,000 incidents per year related to the operation of the plants. Of these, it solves 60% remotely, avoiding more than 250,000 local operations, and finds solutions to the rest by liaising with maintenance services on the ground.
CECOER has a direct impact in terms of achieving high availability rates (97%) of the facilities operated by the company, and also low deviation rates between real and previously programmed production communicated to the system operator. The CECOER is staffed by a highly-qualified team of 100 people, ensuring its operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
MAIN FUNCTIONS
The CECOER is one of the biggest renewable energy control centers in the world. It covers the main functions related to the operation and maintenance of our assets, as well as communication with the electric power systems of the markets where we operate.
These are its main functions:
- Real-time supervision and control of the operation of electric power generation plants in five different technologies (wind, hydro, biomass, photovoltaic and CSP), distributed across the five continents.
- Dealing with incidents: it immediately detects incidents that occur in any plant, which leads to faster correction, either remotely or in coordination with local services.
- Electric power management: based on in-house predictive models, the center sends over 80,000 production programmes per year to more than 20 System Operators.
- Interaction with System Operators: the CECOER sends system operators in each country real-time data on each generation facility, allowing the latter to calculate the electricity production that can be incorporated into its grid and to maximize the penetration of renewable energies into the system.
- Recording of data, analysis, etc.: the center records and analyses operational data to optimize the efficiency of the plants, and it also operates substations and high-voltage power lines to ensure the evacuation of the energy produced to the grids.
- Ensuring that the generation assets comply with the technical requirements established in the Grid Codes, establishing action plants in the event of necessity.
- Monitoring and control of power measurements.
THE CECOER IN FIGURES
12GW
capacity managed
24
countries
29+ TWh
Capacity managed per year
60%
Remote solution of incidents
7,000+
Wind turbines monitored
24/365
Non-stop supervision