MAXAM
MAXAM´s new eolic park in Páramo de Masa
2010.01.20
Press room - News - MAXAM´s new eolic park in Páramo de Masa
This new park´s future Quintanilla is very promising, together with Rabinaldo, the first one the company installed in this area.
MAXAM has achieved its aim and not only has the Eolic Park “Quintanilla” in Páramo de Masa (Burgos) been completed on time but is functioning since last October. It is actually MAXAM’s second eolic park in the area. Ignacio Urcelay Verdugo, Responsible for MAXAM’s Energy Projects, explains why Páramo de Masa was chosen to produce this kind of energy: “From our previous experience of the last park, Rabinaldo, we know it is a very good area for eolic generation because it
is very windy; in fact there are quite a few eolic Parks in the area”.
It is also possible that in future more eolic parks will be built in this area. In fact, they are already working and studying the option of increasing the area’s eolic capacity. From today’s situation, it’s quite clear that all the marked objectives at the time of Rabinaldo’s opening have been accomplished. When we ask him about the differences between the Rabinaldo and the Quintanilla parks, this is his point of view: “Logically, Quintanilla is more technologically advanced than its predecessor. Quintanilla’s eolic park is doted with 2 megawatt turbines, instead of the 1.5 of Rabinaldo. At the same time, it uses other parks shared evacuation structure to improve the investment and reduce its environmental impact”.
It is also possible that in future more eolic parks will be built in this area. In fact, they are already working and studying the option of increasing the area’s eolic capacity. From today’s situation, it’s quite clear that all the marked objectives at the time of Rabinaldo’s opening have been accomplished. When we ask him about the differences between the Rabinaldo and the Quintanilla parks, this is his point of view: “Logically, Quintanilla is more technologically advanced than its predecessor. Quintanilla’s eolic park is doted with 2 megawatt turbines, instead of the 1.5 of Rabinaldo. At the same time, it uses other parks shared evacuation structure to improve the investment and reduce its environmental impact”.
However, if we focus on Quintanilla, we can highlight that “it is a park whose capacity is the limit marked by the regulating authorities. Basically, it’s a park we wanted an even higher capacity for. We wanted to have 30 megawatts, but this was not possible since there are a series of substation and transport networks infrastructures that possess such high occupation indexes that really there would not be enough capacity to absorb all the power that we were thinking of producing. This is why they have lowered the legal capacity from the 30MW that we wanted to 20 MW”.
When the wind blows
Páramo de Masa’s strong increase in eolic production, does this mean other more conventional power stations are going to reduce their production?. This is not as easy as it looks, the person responsible for MAXAM’s energy projects tells us. “What happens is, like most people know, that we obtain eolic energy when it is windy. It’s not like the energy obtained at other power stations, that when energy is need you just press the button and start producing kwh. On the contrary, with eolic parks, wind blows when it wants to and this is when you have to make the most of the situation to produce energy. When it’s windy, eolic parks are producing energyin detriment of other power stations that normally produce polluting
energy, such as gas or coal power stations. Hydraulic power stations do have a great regulation capacity and start to work first when they have water and later, when it interests them given energy prices”.
In Rabinaldo’s particular case, in the years 2007 and 2008 its production went down when it had shown a growing tendency in the previous years. Ignacio Urcelay has the perfect explanation for this: “Until 2007 we had very good years from an eolic perspective and the park was working for over 2.800 hours. However, today we have had over a year and half almost with much less wind than the average for this area. We have very complete measurement data of the last ten years. Also, there’s an excess offer lately, because there’s been a decrease in the demand of electric energy and eolic parks are beginning to be affected also by this situation”.
Ignacio Urcelay has given a truthful picture of Páramo de Masa’s Park. However, what could its future be? For Urcelay, “we think the future is promising. Today there’s too much eolic energy on offer and in future its not going to develop in the sare rapid way it has done over the last few years. What does exist is a future capacity for those areas that have more and better wind. In short, only those parks with a lot of wind, will be competitive”.
In Rabinaldo’s particular case, in the years 2007 and 2008 its production went down when it had shown a growing tendency in the previous years. Ignacio Urcelay has the perfect explanation for this: “Until 2007 we had very good years from an eolic perspective and the park was working for over 2.800 hours. However, today we have had over a year and half almost with much less wind than the average for this area. We have very complete measurement data of the last ten years. Also, there’s an excess offer lately, because there’s been a decrease in the demand of electric energy and eolic parks are beginning to be affected also by this situation”.
Ignacio Urcelay has given a truthful picture of Páramo de Masa’s Park. However, what could its future be? For Urcelay, “we think the future is promising. Today there’s too much eolic energy on offer and in future its not going to develop in the sare rapid way it has done over the last few years. What does exist is a future capacity for those areas that have more and better wind. In short, only those parks with a lot of wind, will be competitive”.
