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Sedéis V: From coal to the cutting edge of renewable energies
The Sedéis V photovoltaic power station is the first of the solar projects installed on the land where the Andorra Thermal Power Plant once stood and represents a change in the region's energy cycle before the closure and dismantling of the plant.
I am the son and grandson of a miner. My grandfather and father were among the thousands who arrived in Andorra in the 1950s looking for a better future for their family. My grandfather started out working on the construction of the railway that would carry coal from the mines in the area to a nearby thermal power plant and then directly mining the coal in the bowels of the earth. What they found here was the most important thing people look for when they decide to pack their bags and leave for another place: Prosperity. Years later, the lignite streams they mined would serve to feed the Teruel Thermal Power Plant that Endesa had in the nearby town and all the industry that grew up around coal became a catalyst for development in the area.
Operator at the Sedéis V solar power plant working on the structure.
I was born in 1976 at the hospital in Alcañiz where all the children were born at that time in Andorra. I grew up in the streets playing football with my friends, studying at the Endesa school and then at the Pablo Serrano Institute. As I got hooked on football and I was quite good at it, I had the opportunity to play in the Autonomous Community Team and I was able to finish my secondary studies together with my sisters in Zaragoza. There I continued my training at the School of Industrial Technical Engineering, and I already thought that this career would enable me to go back to my home town to work some day.
Just as I had planned, during the last year of my degree I managed to enter as an intern in the summer of 1998, knowing that a year later a comprehensive refurbishment of two of the generators at the plant was scheduled and a large investment planned to implement three gas desulphurisation plants. This would involve a significant workload for both in-house staff and contractors. And that's how it was. I started as a technical engineer working for a company called Masa and during my time there I acquired extensive knowledge of the entire installation.
Operator at the Sedéis V solar power station working on the assembly.
At this point, I realised that it was going to be difficult to work for Endesa and I found a job opportunity in Alcañiz as an engineer in a precast construction company. I was working in several departments for two years, but I always knew I would go back to the power station.
However, the situation had not changed and there were still no new vacancies. Then, through one of the managers at the plant, I discovered there was an option of going to Puertollano to take part in a new project: The Elcogas power station. It was a new European demonstration Integrated Combined Cycle Gasification project that really looked like being a success. Innovative, with the support of top-level firms in the sector.
Operator at the Sedéis V solar power plant working on the structure.
It was 2001 and during those years I took the opportunity to learn what was needed to work as a Maintenance Supervisor while studying Industrial Engineering at the University of Ciudad Real. That is where I was until 2006, when I had to take one of the most important decisions of my life. I got a call from Human Resources saying that people had taken early retirement at the Andorra power station and they needed to recruit people for maintenance. I had to choose: Continue in Elcogas, where everything pointed to a more renewable innovative future, or return to a thermal power plant with an expiry date just around the corner.
Operator working at the Sedéis V solar power plant.
Finally after much thought, since I had even bought a house in Puertollano together with my wife, we decided to return to where I had always wanted to live.
I started out as Deputy Head of Service in the mechanical workshop, but in the following years I was promoted to positions of greater responsibility. Finally, just over two years ago, when I became Head of Mechanical Maintenance at the thermal power plant, the expected and planned energy transition arrived and the plant ceased its activity. I then started working at the halfway stage, collaborating in the work of dismantling coal-fired technology while beginning to participate in both wind and photovoltaic projects with the arrival of renewable energies, a universe in which I am now fully immersed myself playing the role of Representative of the Promoter with Enel Green Power in the construction of Sedéis V, the first of the major renewable projects that Endesa plans to execute in the area.
Photovoltaic structure at the Sedéis V solar power station.
Obviously in Andorra this change has had an enormous impact. From the moment the closure of the plant was confirmed, everyone was eagerly awaiting something that could cushion the impact of abandoning coal. The general view was that renewables would only patch things up a little, something that could never replace what had been the engine of the local economy. But now, as a result mainly of the assignment of the Mudéjar hub, the accompanying plan and the large number of agreements with individuals in the area, the perception has changed considerably.
We have recently seen how scepticism has turned into hope. And now I really do believe that a door to the future has opened again for us and for the children of all those who want to stay here.
Manuel Ortiz Tomás
Engineer at Enel Green Power.
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