Litoral, in silence

A thermal power plant is essentially an industrial installation with an expiry date which means that sooner or later it will be a heap of pieces of metal, tubes, cables, etc. and that at some point it will all end up as rubble. There is nothing especially traumatic about this. It is a natural process, the life cycle that also affects inert installations such as the one that Endesa has had in operation in Carboneras since the 1980s. We are all aware that the time for burning coal has ended.

The turbulent international context, which especially affects the energy sector, may well delay the decline of this energy source, but society today demands clean energies, which protect the planet against climate change. And it is up to us to accept this new way of thinking.

Technological transformation, as I said, is natural for me. The only thing I know I will really miss when Litoral returns to being a plot of industrial land with new projects is the people I worked with here and with whom I have shared much of my life.

I started working at the plant 34 years ago, the first 18 as a shift worker and I have spent my entire professional career at this plant, which I knew even before starting to work here, because when operations at the plant began, my father an opportunity to leave As Pontes, where he worked, and move to Cartagena, where we were originally from. Here I met my wife who came through a scholarship in medical services and here we raised our three children. And one of the great privileges of coming every morning to work at Litoral was the exceptional human and professional team, who always worked together and who helped each other in the face of adversity. I am convinced that this was the key to us achieving such outstanding business results. We were the crown jewels.  

In spite of all this, nobody was surprised by the closure process. It was time to start a new phase in energy production. What did perhaps surprise us was how quickly this transition took place. In the blink of an eye I went from working in the Operation department at the plant to assisting the Engineering team to plan the dismantling prior to working on the Phase Out, the process required to disconnect the installation from the national electricity grid.

With the disappearance of our coal-fired power plants we are losing a way of producing energy in which we were technological leaders worldwide. We had a great capacity to adapt to burning any type of coal but still always with first-class performance. It did not matter if some fuels produced more ash, others had a lower calorific value or whether they were more or less within the design parameters, in the end we always managed to make Litoral work at full capacity.   

I remember the first day I came to work here as if it were yesterday. I was astonished by the sheer size of the installation. Everything I had studied at School felt inadequate because of the immensity of the plant, how would I master all the production systems (mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and control, etc.). But, little by little, after many years covering every inch of the plant, and after doing so many different jobs to end up as the Head of Operations, I was able to gather intimate knowledge of this plant which I am convinced will be the site for new industrial projects.

Because this is a privileged location. Any Town Hall would be delighted to have an area like this in Carboneras to develop business initiatives, with a port terminal and road connections that were gradually improved in large part due to the volume of traffic to the plant itself.

In this regard, the Futur-e fair transition plan launched by Endesa has served to channel new ideas for the use of the land in this area. Some of these are already in execution and others are still under analysis. However, what is certain is that the dismantling of Litoral has aroused interest and that all the value that was generated in the area in the past will illuminate opportunities with a view to the future. And that is probably our best legacy.

Jose Galiano

Responsable de O&M Phase Out / Commissioning Manager Iberia Litoral de Almería.