Spain's Tortosa Energy Cogeneration Power Plant Increases Capacity 31%

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Tortosa Energy, the cogeneration power plant in Tarragona, Spain, is able to produce 41.6 megawatts (MW) of power after the addition of two engines in January 2010. The power station is owned and operated by Tortosa Energía SA, a subsidiary of Cogen AS and a joint-venture with Polialco SA. Polialco is a manufacturer of pentaerythritol and formaldehyde.

The Tortosa facility in Baix Ebre is inside the Ercos Chemical Plant and is equipped with a 21-MW combined-cycle LM2500 General Electric (NYSE:GE) combustion turbine and a 7-MW Blohm + Voss Industries GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) steam turbine, with a total power output of 28 MW. With the recent installation of two 6.8-MW Rolls Royce (OTC:RYCEY) (London, England) series B engines, the plant increased capacity by 13.6 MW, reaching a total of 41.6 MW.

The importance of the plant is its high efficiency, as its use of energy is 15% higher than similar power plants. This increase in efficiency is due to the high technology that enables the use of 76% of the energy of the gas employed in both electricity (46%) and heat and cold (30%). With the addition of these new engines, the facility will provide for the needs of 33,000 Spanish homes, nearly the entire population of the area. Also, the plant can save 21,600 tonnes per year of greenhouse gas emissions, almost 3% of the emissions of the Catalan region.

Cogen AS is a Norwegian-owned company with an extensive and well known presence in the Spanish energy market, where it promotes, operates and invests in environmental and energy-efficient projects.

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