ENDESA S A : awards Recifemetal the dismantling of the Compostilla thermal power plant

• The works, which will last four years and will generate 130 jobs, will be made compatible with the potential projects of the Futur-e Plan that Endesa is analysing
• 80% of the workers taking part in the dismantling will come from the plant's auxiliary companies or will be residents in the towns near the plant
• The award is part of the bill totalling over 62 million euros that Endesa will have to pay in order to leave the site in a position where it can be used for the business projects planned for the area.
• Applying circular economy criteria, a selective demolition will be carried out, segregating and characterising each of the 266,870 tons of materials that make up the facility, which will allow use to be made of the waste.

Endesa has awarded the Recifemetal company the dismantling of the Compostilla thermal power plant, located in Cubillos del Sil, an operation of great technical complexity that will mobilise an annual average of 130 direct employees who will work there for four years. 80% of the workers who will participate in the work will come from the Bierzo region.

The award is part of the bill totalling over 62 million euros that Endesa will have to pay in order to leave the site in a position where it can be used in the future. The start of the works prior to the dismantling will take place throughout the month of November.

Composed of an annual average of 130 people, the human team that will take care of the dismantling works will be mostly from former contractors of the Compostilla thermal power plant or residents of the Bierzo region, with priority given to those from the towns of Cubillos del Sil, Ponferrada and Cabañas Raras. Endesa, as part of its commitment to sustainability, has given priority in the tender process for awarding the work, among other aspects, to the bid that included the largest number of local workers.

Training is being given to these workers, which aims to improve the trust of and ties with the local community and the employability of workers in the area, one of the shared value creation measures outlined in Endesa's Futur-e plan.

The courses are being carried out within the framework of the collaboration agreement between the Santa Bárbara Foundation (Junta de Castilla y León), the Ciudad de la Energía Foundation-CIUDEN (Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge) and Endesa. They have been divided into three professional training programmes in which 360 students selected by the Santa Bárbara Foundation will take part.

The training, which will focus on dismantling the plant and specifically on the prevention of occupational hazards, will be given to 200 students in four groups. There will also be 2 courses aimed at the assembly and operation and maintenance of wind farms that will be provided to a total of 60 students and 2 courses for 100 students in other sectors with potential, which will be defined after the result of the projects tender that Endesa launched at the end of 2019 for the reindustrialisation of the plant site.

The Compostilla thermal plant dismantling project is designed to make the demolition work compatible with actions to develop future projects currently in the evaluation period within the tender process organised in the Futur-e plan for the use of the current facility. This will make it necessary to carry out exhaustive planning and coordination of the work, prioritising occupational health and safety and all aspects related to environmental protection.

A circular economy for the dismantling project

The management of the demolition project will be carried out by a highly qualified team, as required by a task as complex as the one to be carried out in Compostilla. The work will begin in the next few months, after the company Recifemetal has set up in the area, and will last for four years.

To carry out the comprehensive management of the dismantling, a selective demolition system will be used to segregate and classify the 266,870 tons of debris resulting from the demolition. This method, together with the application of the circular economy in waste management, will allow maximum use of the waste, either for subsequent reuse or as a raw material, thereby minimising the proportion destined for landfill.

The notion of circular economy to which Endesa is committed includes the reuse of concrete waste, employing crushing equipment with the capacity to process 300 tons per hour featuring a jaw crusher, a magnetic separator for the segregation of the detached reinforcements and a sieve for the classification of the crushed concrete. The reinforcement steel and recycled aggregate can therefore be recovered to be used to fill the gaps generated by the works, as well as in the morphological remodelling of the land after demolition.

In order to reduce the effects on the environment as much as possible, a comprehensive environmental surveillance plan will be implemented, with special attention paid to emissions and discharges during the execution of the work.

To minimise the risk of accidents and preserve the health of the workers, Endesa will closely monitor the procedures for each of the demolition activities. Likewise, a hospital will be installed in situ for the stabilisation of an injured person in the event of an accident, and a team specialised in vertical work will act in an emergency to rescue of workers in structures with difficult access.

When the thermal power plant officially ceased operation on 30 June, it had just three generating sets, generating 1,051.7 MW of total power, which came on line between 1972 and 1985. Two other older generating sets were already in the process of being dismantled, having been in service since the early 1960s. The facilities occupy around 375 hectares, an area in which there are three clearly differentiated areas: one area that houses the electricity generating sets, another that houses the transformer compounds and auxiliary facilities, and lastly the coal compound with a landfill site for non-hazardous waste.

Seven demolition zones

Endesa has grouped the demolition areas by standardised systems and facilities existing on the site. The demolition zones are as follows:

Zone 1 Turbines: made up of the turbine buildings of generating sets 1, 2 and 3 and of sets 4 and 5. It also contains the equipment of generating sets 3, 4 and 5, such as generators, turbines, condensers, heaters and other associated facilities.

Zone 2 Boilers: includes boilers, electrostatic precipitators and demineralised water tanks.

Zone 3 Gas desulfurization plants: three gas desulfurization plants with their components, a gypsum dehydration building, a water treatment plant, a pump hall, an electrical building, gypsum belts and silos.

Zone 4 Lean structures: facilities whose dismantling and demolition will be carried out by blasting, such as chimneys, cooling towers and coal silo buildings.

Zone 5 Coal compound: all coal storage facilities, stacking machines, collectors, back extractors, trippers, the coal crushing building, mineral transfer towers, electric coaling buildings, sampling towers, scales, coal hoppers, fuel transport belts, coal unloading areas etc.

Zone 6. Miscellaneous buildings and structures: Included in this area are the general facilities that are outside the scope of the previous areas, such as the office building, raw water tank and pre-treatment area, cooling water basins, warehouses and workshops etc.

Zone 7. Specific elements: Railway and underground passageways.