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Iberdrola is carrying out Tâmega, the major project in the energy sector in Portuguese history which has involved the construction of three dams and three power plants (Gouvães, Daivões and Alto Tâmega) in the north of Portugal. Iberdrola’s current flagship project will have installed a capacity of 1,158 MW, representing an increase of 6% in the total installed electrical power in the country, which means the end of 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually and the diversification of the generation sources.
The complex will be able to produce 1,766 GWh per year, enough to meet the energy needs of neighboring municipalities and the cities of Braga and Guimarães (440,000 homes). Furthermore, this large renewable infrastructure will have enough storage capacity to serve two million Portuguese households for a whole day.
And there is where CT comes in, during the electrical engineering works, providing a team of engineers specialized in a variety of disciplines. On one hand, we collaborate in a services package consisting of quality control and delineation with ePlan. On the other hand, for two of its plants- Gouvães (880 MW) and Alto Tâmega (160 MW)-, our engineers contribute to the design of the telecommunications network, control system (SCADA), commissioning process, protection related to the main elements such as turbine and transformers, and integration (monitoring and failure simulations).
We have been collaborating with Iberdrola during several years on control engineering development for hydropower plants, however this project is an iconic one due to its unique features and unprecedented size. The Gouvães exploitation, the most relevant of the three ones, includes a pumping station and an upper reservoir. It has four generators that add up to 880 MW and that are hosted in an underground cavern with a volume equivalent to 25 Olympic swimming pools. This plant is reversible, that is, it allows for storing water from the Daivões reservoir in the Gouvães reservoir, taking advantage of the more than 650 meters difference in elevation between them both. In this way, it will be possible to pump energy when there is an excess of production, for example at night, and recover it when necessary, during the day. Its storage capacity will enable the continuous supply of electricity to the Porto metropolitan area for 24 hours.
The opportunity to participate in this project is fruit of our capacities and vast experience in similar projects carried out in Spain, such as CH La Muela, CH Aldeávila and CH Cortijo, among others.
