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Company Report Table of Content

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Analysis Entering the Path to 100 Percent Renewable Energy

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Analysis Mexico’s Path to 100 Percent

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Analysis Flexible Energy, Natural Resources Key in Decarbonization

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Analysis Mexico Needs Over 196GWof Flexibility Toward 100 Percent Renewables

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Expert Contributor Raúl Carral | Business Development, Latin America North | Wärtsilä

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Conference Highlights Flexible Power Generators Are the Future

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Analysis Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium LATAM and Caribbean Day 1

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Analysis Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium LATAM and Caribbean Day 2

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Analysis Wärtsilä Supplies 600MW Power Plants to CFE

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Entering the Path to 100 Percent Renewable Energy COVID-19 has taken a tragic health and economic toll on the world. The one silver lining is that the pandemic also induced a temporary global drop in carbon emissions. The result: clearer skies, revealing a view of what a sustainable future could look like. For many governments and industries, the concept of sustainability remains elusive and much work needs to be done. Nevertheless, a path toward a 100 percent renewable future can – and should – not only be considered but also outlined.

Sampo Suvisaari, Energy Business Director for Latin America North at Wärtsilä, was involved in the creation of the company’s innovative initiative called Path to 100%.

The question that is on everyone’s mind is how to not only achieve but accelerate the transition to 100 percent renewable energy? To answer this question, the Path to 100 gathers a team of experts from all over the world to gain valuable insights.

“The initiative is our way of highlighting that a 100 percent renewable future is not only possible but likely in the foreseeable future. Our experts have some interesting descriptions on how this will be accomplished,” Suvisaari says.

Visualizing the pathway toward sustainability is a challenging job and there are various factors to consider: people, capital, technologies and government policies need to fit together in unison to make the transition to renewable energy a success.

The transition can take many angles, there is not one single solution; instead, there is a collection of options that could lead to developing a plan of action.

Once that plan is set in motion, its viability must be considered. The plan will only work if the solutions are concrete, financially feasible and possible to carry out in the short term. The implementation of the path needs to be realistic. Some countries such as Denmark and Germany have already shown the world that implementing initiatives for a sustainable world is absolutely possible. Nevertheless, every country is different and will have a different path to take.

Suvisaari shares a crucial part of this insight in order to establish a solution: “The key point in visualizing a realistic pathway forward is to analyze the behavior of entire power grids, rather than focusing on individual elements alone. The results can be surprising,” he says.

Focusing on the behavior of the entire grid is an especially interesting exercise in the case of Mexico. While the country has a great deal of potential regarding renewable energy, its power grid has been known to struggle to keep up with demand. In light of the administration’s vision of the country’s energy transition, the question of a sustainable path might be Read the complete article More about this topic

more imperative than ever. To shed light on the issue, MBN and Path to 100 are organizing a webinar on the topic very soon. Stay tuned to find out more.

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Mexico’s Path to 100 Percent Considered a global initiative, the Path to 100 Percent movement seeks to find reliable, quick and cost-effective ways to fully decarbonize electricity. To achieve this, there a variety of paths available to every country. What would Mexico’s roadmap look like? Wärtsilä’s Business Development Executive for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Raúl Carral, sheds light on where to start.

A look at SENER’s latest 2019 figures reveal that Mexico had around 80GW of installed energy capacity. Fossil fuels accounted for 66 percent of the capacity, 56 percent came from natural gas, which has grown at a very fast rate over the past decade and is expected to increase further as a result of newly planned, state-owned CFE powerplants. Renewables and hydroelectricity combined made up 17 percent of the energy, although many MWs of wind and solar have been installed in 2020.

“We see that in the future more and more renewable and intermittent generation will be integrated in the power grids globally, as well as in Mexico. This responds to the increasing competitiveness of wind and solar power generation. Costs are decreasing significantly, breaking world records constantly,” Carral told MBN. Renewable energy has one downside: intermittency, which occurs because sun and wind are not available throughout the entire day. Carral points out the importance of having power generation that can balance the grid. Hydroelectric plants, of which Mexico has its fair share, will be important.

(In)flexible Power Flexible generation means assets can go from 0 to 100 percent within seven minutes. Examples include Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICE) and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). While not power generation assets per se, “these fulfill the purpose of balancing the grid whenever there is intermittency by providing power when it is needed,” Carral said. Inflexible assets, such as coal, nuclear and combined cycle power plants simply take over seven minutes to reach a 100 percent load from zero.

Flexible power generation is well-suited to balance a grid dealing with increased intermittency; therefore, the world will need to invest more into this area than in inflexible power generation. “If you conceive multimillion-dollar investments in power generation assets, you need to take into account how future-proof these investments are,” Carral said.

A Path Mexico Can Follow The Mexican government is strongly focused on strengthening CFE. “For that to happen, CFE needs to renew its power generation assets and plan for important investments,” Carral said. This mission can go hand in hand with Mexico’s path to 100 percent. Since billions of US dollars need to be invested, Carral argues CFE should consider looking at competitive and future-proof assets to make every dollar count. “It makes sense to invest in cheap, renewable power together with flexible power generation and make future plans based on a vision that will Read the complete article More about this topic

lead to more profitability, sustainability and reliability of CFE’s power generation and the Mexican power grid. This will make CFE stronger and more competitive.”

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Flexible Energy, Natural Resources Key in Decarbonization Despite the climate goals set by international agreements, industry experts agree that much work still needs to be done.

True sustainability, they say, remains an elusive concept. During the webinar, “Mexico’s Path to 100%: Our country’s trajectory towards 100% renewable energy,” on Wednesday, industry experts examined this issue, focusing on the Mexican context and the path to 100 percent renewable energy.

“The Path to 100%” initiative is driven by Finnish energy technology mainstay Wärtsilä, which hosted the webinar. “It brings together experts from various areas to examine what a viable, practical path to 100 percent would look like,” said Sampo Suvisaari, Energy Business Director Latin America North of Wärtsilä. “The topic generates strong discussions, because the path is anything but obvious.”

Whatever the route, a focus on achievability is at the core of the initiative, featuring sensible investments and a reliable system throughout the process. This latter factor is important because renewable energy is intermittent, meaning that the grid system cannot rely on it 24/7. Simply adding battery storage is not enough. “The system has to be designed to deal with extreme conditions,” Suvisaari said, referring to the unforeseen cold snap in Texas that halted natural gas supply to Mexico, causing shortages and blackouts in parts of the country.

To transition to 100 percent, Mexico needs an integral approach, said Patricia Tatto, Vice President America of ATA Renewables.

“The idea that Mexico could reach 100 percent will need great effort from everyone. It requires government support, a strong legal framework, backing from companies and broad assistance from society.” Energy efficiency, electrical vehicles and decarbonization are needed to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goals agreed by 105 countries, including Mexico.

Even within the industry there are hurdles, especially in overcoming the mindset of some energy professionals. “Engineers can suffer from tunnel vision and be very conservative,” said Santiago Barcón, CEO of PQBarcon and BAORGG. “But we cannot risk blackouts in the system either.” It would, therefore, be best to work with as many different options as possible. “I am convinced that the future is electric, and it is renewable. The only thing that will change is the speed with which we get there,” Barcón added.

Raúl Carral, Business Development Mexico, Central America & Carribean at Wärtsilä, agreed with this notion, pointing out that “The Path to 100%” is more than possible. “We have been studying the technologies, and it is indeed feasible to have a system running fully on renewables, while remaining completely stable and operating at very low costs,” Carral said. In fact, solar costs have dropped to as low as US$20MW/h in Europe, and they are decreasing further as time goes by. As such, Carral urges engineers to start envisioning the path, despite the issues that may arise.

When incorporating renewable energy, Carral said that the first stretch is the most difficult for any grid. “Reaching between 10 to

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20 percent renewable capacity in the mix, abrupt changes can occur,” he said. In the future, countries will have the opportunity to follow a better-planned and well-structured approach. Price and reliability are important factors to consider, all experts agreed.

To ensure the system remains stable, flexibility is key. “The more flexibility a system has, the more robust it becomes,” highlighted Barcón. Simply adopting as much renewable energy as possible into the mix might not be feasible for grid operators, unless they have flexible options. High investments directed at improving the system can be a deterrent as well. “Sadly, the world is all for being green until the bill arrives,” he said. Nevertheless, Barcón expects renewable penetration to continue growing steadily.

Describing the characteristics of flexible power, Carral first explained what inflexible power looks like. He said that included those power plants that go from 0 to 100 percent of their capacity over the course of a day. As such, they cannot adapt fast enough.

Examples of these power plants are coal plants and even the more modern combined cycles. “Little by little, these power plants lose their role in the system as it evolves,” Carral said. Flexibility, on the other hand, can be reached especially “through power plants that can go from 0 to 100 in a few minutes.” Flexible power can come from battery storage, which does not produce power but can inject it into the grid when renewable energy stops producing.

Furthermore, flexible power engines can play an important role when providing energy when it is needed, especially for stability.

Renewable energy also can lead to excess energy. This has a clear benefit, Carral pointed out. “Excess energy can be beneficial, not only for battery storage. It can also be used to generate green hydrogen, which can be used for various engines whenever it is needed.”

By developing these technologies smartly, the 100 percent goal becomes closer to reality. Carral noted that large, long-term energy investments should be focused on the technologies of the future instead of on technologies that will lose their value in the next decade.

In this regard, Tatto believes that reducing fossil fuel use in power production is absolutely necessary to achieve Mexico’s climate goals. Phasing out fossil fuels immediately is not probable, however, so carbon capture technology can be integrated to reduce the environmental impact. Using top technology is also crucial to deal with renewable’s intermittence. Mexico has a further staple it can rely on: its clean hydropower capacity. Other experts agreed on the importance of this long-standing staple in Mexico’s energy mix but warned about the problems associated with hydroelectricity. Water levels, for instance, are strongly impacted by climate change. “Thermoelectric plants needed to be constructed in Brazil to offset when hydroelectric power plants were not able to operate,” Suvisaari said. Furthermore, Tatto pointed out that new hydropower is often not an option.

“New hydroelectricity becomes less and less feasible due to the displacement of people its large installations entail.”

Mexico’s path to 100 percent could also result in great social benefit. Experts point out that cheap, clean energy is a motor for development in the country. Barcón noted that 2.5 million Mexicans Read the complete article More about this topic

still live without stable, constant electricity supply. Flexible power is an opportunity to solve this issue. “Stable electrical capacity can change people’s lives,” Barcón said.

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Mexico Needs Over 196GW of Flexibility Toward 100 Percent Renewables Finnish technology group Wärtsilä has highlighted a striking need to scale up flexibility in Mexico, in the form of energy storage and flexible gas technology. According to the company, 196GW of flexible assets are needed for Mexico’s energy systems to run on 100 percent renewable energy at the lowest cost. The capacity needed to balance Mexico’s switch to grids powered by intermittent renewables must come from two key technologies: over 169GW of energy storage and over 30 GW of flexible gas power capacity capable of running on future fuels.

“By building high shares of renewables, we can create the conditions to produce carbon-neutral Future Fuels that can decarbonise all energy intensive sectors, from power to mobility.

To solve this final piece of the net-zero puzzle, the answer once again is to urgently build more renewables, supported by futureproof flexibility solutions,” said Sampo Suvisaari, Energy Business Director of Latin America North at Wärtsilä Energy, Wärtsilä found that Mexico has the seventh greatest need for agile flexible solutions. This reflects the country’s exceptionally high potential to meet its demand with solar energy (over 54 percent in Mexico), and the requirement to store that power when solar is no longer generating. Wärtsilä has launched grid balancing technology capable of ramping up to 10MW+ per module in 2min to bridge utilities to a 100 percent renewable energy future.

Wärtsilä’s grid balancing technology is part of a line of products designed to cost effectively accelerate the energy transition, including power plants, energy storage and management systems.

The first power plant solution in the portfolio is powered by the upgraded Wärtsilä 34SG Balancer engine, optimized for renewable baseload markets. The power plant solution is based on lean design and it can be equipped with features such as unmanned standby, remote control capabilities, 24/7 data streaming and dynamic power management. Optimized performance and reliability are supported by Wärtsilä Lifecycle solutions.

Wärtsilä’s power plant gas engines can currently run on natural gas, biogas, synthetic methane or hydrogen blends. The company is actively developing the combustion process to allow the burning of 100 percent hydrogen and other future fuels. A significant degree of overcapacity is needed to account for the variability of wind and solar generation. Excess electricity is then utilized to produce future fuels with Power-to-X technology.

The modelling finds that balancing the intermittency of the renewable production with a combination of flexible gas and energy storage would be 38 percent cheaper for the G20, in comparison to relying on energy storage alone. Alongside the power plant solution, Wärtsilä offers its fully integrated GridSolv energy storage technology, designed for ease of deployment and sustainable energy optimisation, and its GEMS Digital Energy Read the complete article More about this topic

Platform. GEMS dynamically optimizes energy systems through a broad range of applications, like frequency regulation, to create revenue streams and enhance grid/system resilience.

Some might think that developing a project based on a single technological solution could provide the required focus and business case to make it more attractive. However, new ways to successfully combine solutions can make the project even more successful. Hybrid systems can generally have the disadvantage of an initial higher CAPEX but having lower operating costs, higher revenues and better dispatchability can prove to be very valuable.

In terms of recent power generation developments, the major ones are in renewable energy, primarily from wind and solar power with higher technological capabilities, lower costs and zero air emissions. The cost of energy produced by these assets has drastically reduced to a fraction of what they used to cost over the last decade. Nowadays, we can see energy prices produced from renewable power from power auctions as low as US$10-15/MWh. However, the setback of renewable power is the intermittency

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of generation. But it is possible to plan for such intermittency

Hybrid Solutions: The Best of Power Generation and Storage Worlds Raúl Carral Business Development, Latin America North | Wärtsilä

and combine power generation with other assets that offer firm capacity and increase the monetization of the project. This is where Flexible Power Generation and Battery Energy Storage Systems come into the picture. This consists of power plants that can generate power from 0 percent to 100 percent power in just 2-5 minutes. Furthermore, these power plants can start and stop several times per day as needed and efficiently generate partial power loads. Today, Flexible Power Generation is based on reciprocating internal combustion engines. These engines have had a strong technology development over the past few years. As a result, efficiency has increased to close to 50 percent. In addition, these engines can use sustainable instead of traditional fossil fuels.

In addition, Battery Energy Storage Systems can provide for higher reliability and power arbitrage.These systems also have become more affordable in the last few years, making them more attractive. A combination of renewable power with Flexible Power and Battery Energy Storage Systems can bring innovative possibilities for power projects in new creative ways, based on combinations that include: 1. Renewables and Battery Energy Storage Systems – this combination can produce new energy arbitrage business models, as an example.

This is a way to cope with excess production of renewable power or production of renewable power that otherwise would produce less revenue due to low prices. The stored energy can be distributed when energy demand is higher which also drives up energy prices.

2. Renewables, Flexible Power, and Battery Energy Storage Systems – this combination can yield firm power, higher efficiency and increased reliability. Altogether these assets produce affordable electricity with high availability and reliability. Individual engines can operate at higher loads and, therefore, at higher efficiency. This is of great value for industrial facilities operating in island mode or even having isolated power grids or micro-grids that are also highly reliable.

Read the complete article More about this person More about this company

3. Renewables and Flexible Power – this combination can result in higher availability of power, higher efficiency and lower costs. Flexible Power can generate electricity at times when renewables are not producing power, firming up power. Also, there could be a small portion of renewables such as solar power to energize auxiliary loads in the thermal power plant, like with the cooling system. Normally when there is more solar energy, there is also more heat, and the radiators would need more power to cool down the thermal power plant. This results in additional efficiency of the thermal power plant, providing greater dispatchability and lower costs while producing higher revenues.

Conference

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F

lexible power generators are considered the future of the sector. Meanwhile, inflexible energies such as nuclear, coal and gas combined cycles will disappear, as they cannot meet the new demands of the energy sector, said Raúl Carral, Business Development

Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Wärtsilä during Mexico Energy Forum 2021 on Thursday, March 11. Carral shared some of the projects the company currently has in Mexico.

The first was Huinalá in Nuevo Leon, where the company has implemented a Flexicycle, which is a highly efficient combined cycle that allows it to operate with resources like coal or with a flexible generator that complements renewable energy. Carral explained that flexible generation systems change according to customer needs and that the combined cycle allows gas recovery to generate additional steam-based electricity.

The company highlighted the positive results of its project at the Wind Park of Eólica Coromuel in Baja California Sur, where the company’s energy storage system allows the park to meet the requirements of the local grid. Carral explained that Wärtsilä is helping to regulate the intermittency of renewables through a GEMS smart energy management system

Flexible Power Generators Are the Future

that monitors energy production applications and controls its

Raul Carral

challenges of the sector and, therefore, can no longer be part

Business Development, Latin America North | Wärtsilä

frequency. Energy can be obtained through flexible systems when it cannot be produced from renewable energies. During these intermittency times, it is important to have a flexible base that can go from 0 to 100 in less than 3 minutes. Coal, nuclear power plants and combined cycle gas turbines are not very flexible. It can take hours or even days before they produce energy. These energies are unable to face the current of the new future of electricity generation. “If you look at energy transition and renewable integration from a planning perspective, you can make energy affordable for everyone and strengthen CFE at the same time,” Carral said in a recent interview with MBN. “Natural gas will play an important role in the future. However, it will not be as it was planned, since it will also be replaced by alternative energies.”

According to Mexico’s energy generation goals, in 2021, 30 percent of energy must be generated from renewable energies, increasing to 35 percent in 2024, 45 percent in 2026 and 60 percent in 2050. “I believe that Mexico will achieve its goals this year. There are some challenges but renewable energies are being used more.” Mexico currently has 68 solar plants in commercial operation and that the company expects continuous growth due to its environmental and financial benefits. “We see that in the future more and more renewable and intermittent generation will be integrated iton the power grids, globally. This responds to the increasing competitiveness of wind and solar power generation. Costs are decreasing significantly, breaking world records constantly,” Carral told MBN, adding that renewable assets will help meet the Paris Agreement’s goals and protect the future of the environment.

Carral concluded that the world’s path to renewable energy includes alternative sources, energy storage and flexible generation. The company predicts inflexible power generation technologies will be discontinued. Coal, nuclear power plants

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and gas turbine combined cycles will diminish significantly.

Meanwhile, renewables will become the favorite option as they are the cheapest power generators in the world.

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Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium LATAM and Caribbean Day 1 With the COP26 summit in Scotland around the corner, integrating renewable energy into the grid with the objective to ward off catastrophic climate change is what is currently dominating the discussion. Because existing grids were not initially constructed to handle the intermittency that comes with renewable energy, countries in Latin America tend to handle the issue differently. Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium Day 1 briefly outlined some of Latin America’s renewable energy frontrunners discusses which technologies can help and where we can find succesfull case studies.

A global energy transition asks that many matters be settled.

Therefore, incorporating a high amount of renewable energy in any grid, with an end goal of 100 percent renewable energy, is considered a key factor. Balancing such a system is a delicate act, which requires meticulous modeling, intelligent future planning and top flexible power technology. “We are going through a global energy transition and are seeing a strong movement toward decarbonization and net zero goals,” said Anja Frada, Vice President of Strategy & Business Development at Wärtsilä’s Energy Business.

Wärtsilä’s PLEXOS power system optimization software has been successful in planning the future of power systems from a technoeconomic perspective. “Through modeling we are able to show the benefits of the transition on the system-level,” added Frada.

Brazil was a particular success case for PLEXOS. The country already has a strong amount of renewable energy generation.

Wind and solar capacity is growing but hydroelectric power plants account for 65 to 75 percent of renewable generation. The good news is that hydropower is flexible but developing more of it is not a possibility as it entails flooding the Amazon.

“The myth that hydro could complement wind and solar easily already existed. When we modeled this, the results were interesting,” said Cavados about Wärtsilä’s findings. In scenarios where much rain fell, this myth was confirmed and Brazil could comfortably dispatch 85 to 95 percent of renewable energy.

This all changed during average or low rainfall. Dealing with this required significant flexible capacity because wind and solar resources are too intermittent to be a base load on their own. As a result, Brazil requires 12 to 13GW of flexible capacity.

Not all flexible capacity is created equal, though. Brazil should therefore look toward an optimal solution based on its specific situation. If Brazil sees a lot of rain, the system will barely require its flexible capacity. When it is dry, the system needs a lot of power and should power 50 to 60 percent of the dispatch.

“Dry years happen quite often too,” said Cavados. During an average year, flexible capacity is to power 15-20 percent of the grid, but capacity should be able to start and stop rapidly and often. “Combined cycle power plants are ideal for carrying large amounts of the baseload to competitive costs, but feature a lot of CAPEX and deliver little to no value in dry years. For this reason,

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reciprocating engines are Brazil’s optimal solution,” said Cavados.

Reciprocating engines can start and stop easily and function as a strong power source much like an open cycle gas power plant. When it is idle, it costs very little. Whereas this is the ideal solution for Brazil, other countries with a different grid make-up have different issues to deal with and questions to answer.

Road Mapping the Energy Transition Sequence modeling suggests that despite nations having fundamentally different energy frameworks, they are bound to face similar challenges and follow a similar energy transition model towards net zero, says Silvia Zumarraga, Market Development Manager at Wärtsilä. From the Path-to-100 study emerged an apparent three-stage process which initiates with a preparation phase, entailing an in-depth assessment of the country’s existing power system needed to identify capabilities and limitations essential to formulating the first regulatory steps.

The information collected will also inform crucial downstream decisions about the national road map which should include rational decisions about what infrastructure will need to be developed and retired without compromising the flexibility of the grid. Since countries use a different composition of natural resources to generate energy this phase is where these nations diverge the most which is important and necessary.

Mexico which has a significantly high capacity for renewable energy generation should take heed from Germany’s experience and capacitate their energy grid to handle energy surges they can generate. Otherwise, the country can continue to expect disruptions such as the one they experienced last December when an “irregular connection” started a fire due to a system failure, consequence of high wind and solar energy generation and very low demand. Moreover, under the current administration the energy system has been reconfigured around its state enterprises which would be fine if their emphasis was renewable energy, but instead the country has taken a step back, to the extent as defaulting on their UN COP commitments. Nevertheless, they have made great progress in building cogeneration plants needed to keep energy generation stable until Mexico builds up its energy storage capabilities.

Hydrogen, Future Fuels: Chile Leading the Way in the Americas Although renewable energy development is usually associated with more advanced economies, Chile has an ambitious plan of its own to tackle the energy transition. The country is set to lead the way in Latin America and compete at the global level, aiming to take full advantage of the “huge potential” it has, said Alejandro Mc Donough, Executive Managing Director of Wärtsilä in Chile.

Chile committed to reach 100 percent carbon neutral power system by 2050. The path to decarbonization sets high carbon emitting technologies to be retired by 2030, when the power system will be fully capable of serving the load without coal and diesel oil. By 2030, emissions will be cut by 80 percent, said Mc Donough. The country’s ambitious plan is based on 4 pillars, explains the country’s Ministry of Energy: retirement of coal-fired power plants and increasing renewables, energy efficiency, electromobility and green hydrogen, which presents diverse challenges itself. Already over 40 projects have began Read the complete article More about this topic

to materialize in Chile, with over US$15 billion projected investment by 2030. More than 15 projects have defined a starting date for operations.

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Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium LATAM and Caribbean Day 2 With the COP26 summit in Scotland around the corner, integrating renewable energy into the grid with the objective to ward off catastrophic climate change is what is currently dominating the discussion. Because existing grids were not initially constructed to handle the intermittency that comes with renewable energy, countries in Latin America tend to handle the issue differently.

Wärtsilä’s Flexible Power Symposium Day 2 outlined some of the success stories and key assets facilitating the energy transition.

El Tesorito: Key Benefit Toward Colombia’s Grid Reliability In Colombia, much of the energy matrix relies on hydroelectric power plants. Although this is considered a stable and even flexible source of power generation, Colombia requires additional stability.

El Tesorito, a 204.7MW Wärtstilä-engineered gas-fired power plant is optimally positioned to ensure the reliability of the grid.

The plant is currently under development in the Sahagún zone, and is expected to start operating in March 2022. The project features 11 Wärstilä engines and further benefits for a newly nearby constructed 500kV substation. It received natural gas from the nearby Jobo gas field via a dedicated pipeline, its supply guaranteed under a 20-year supply agreement. The Jobo complex currently processes gas from Canacol’s two largest blocks, making the field one of the fastest growing production hubs in the country.

Immediate Solutions for Power Producers Once a risky and unfeasible option, cogeneration has emerged as the most sensible solution to power producers and national decarbonization efforts. Previously, the wide adoption of this solution had been inhibited by the known monopolization of LNG supply and an unpaid infrastructure and technology curb.

Since then, however, the supply market has become more diverse and with the support of national governments the necessary infrastructure needed for transport has been built, thereby making gaseous fuels a realistic and low risk input fuel.

Puerto Rico’s Path to Power System Decarbonization With only 3 percent of the power being generated by renewables, Puerto Rico is committed to switching to 100 percent carbon neutral power generation by 2050, a “realistic dream,” said Jussi Heikkinen, Director of Growth and Development at Wärtsilä. Puerto Rico’s plan, which includes two checkpoints (40 percent renewable power in 2025 and 60 percent in 2040), was modeled through PLEXOS Energy Market Simulation Software by the Wärtsilä Latin America team.

A Virtual Tour Through the Manantiales Behr Thermal Power Plant Working under a full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, Finnish energy technology pioneer Wärtsilä has built for Argentina’s YPF Luz company a highly efficient 58MW gas-fired power plant located at the Manantiales Behr oil field.

Executives from YPF Luz and Wärtsilä provided a virtual tour of Read the complete article More about this topic

the fascinating power plant, which has a total capacity of 58MW provided via 5 of Wärtsila’s innovative 19V31SG gas engines, each with a capacity of 11.7MW.

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Wärtsilä Supplies 600MW Power Plants to CFE Finnish energy technology leader Wärtsilä will supply two sizeable multi-fuel-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 600MW for Mexico’s state-owned utility company CFE. The two contracts are valued at €480 million (US$544.8 million) and will be executed

by Wärtsilä on a full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) basis. Taken together, the power plants represent the single largest EPC contract for power producing capacity in the history of the Finnish company. Included in the contract is a 400MW project in Mexicali Oriente, Baja California, as well as a 200MW power plant in Sonora. The power plants are scheduled to be constructed and commissioned in various phases during 2022 and 2023.

The projects consist a 400MW facility, the Mexicali Oriente power plant located in Mexico’s Baja California state and the Parque Industrial plant, a 200MW generating unit located in Sonora. Mexicali Oriente consists of 24 of Wärtsilä’s 50DF dual-fuel engines, whereas Parque Industrial utilizes 22 Wärtsilä 34DF dual-fuel engines.

The dual fuels will mainly use natural gas but can run efficiently on liquid fuel by means of back-up. CFE is working to increase its natural gas supply for Baja California, which remains unconnected to Mexico’s nationally integrated power grid. A winter storm in February 2021 disrupted the gas supply, created significant issues for the national system and highlighted the importance of added flexibility in Mexico’s power matrix.

The power plants will be used constantly during the summer months, when electricity demand is at its highest in the two states because temperatures reach as high as 50 °C. During the rest of the year, the power plants are to provide grid balancing services, optimally using the technology’s ability to ramp up or scale down power production at a moment’s notice.

“We are honoured to have been awarded these valuable contracts, jointly the biggest ever for Wärtsilä Energy. It speaks of the value created by our state-of-the-art flexible power generation solutions, which provide a unique combination of energy efficiency, and fuel and operational flexibility, supported by high reliability,” said Sushil Purohit, President, Wärtsilä Energy.

“Wärtsilä’s experience with EPC deliveries, its ability to deliver on a fast-track basis, and the efficiency of the company’s engine technology were key considerations in the contract award,” said Risto Paldanius, Vice President Americas, Wärtsilä Energy. “The power plants will serve the local needs today, and they will adapt to future needs,” he added.

To date, Wärtsilä has delivered over 500 MW of power plant capacity in Mexico, of which 380 MW are currently covered by Wärtsilä long-term service agreements. The company has solid experience developing flexible power generation capacity, which becomes increasingly important as more intermittent renewable energy resources are incorporated in the grid. Flexible power plants that can Read the complete article More about this topic

efficiently run as both a base load and respond to balance the grid are increasingly valuable and offer the added advantage of a relatively low cost compared to other technologies.