Gondomar gas plant celebrates its silver anniversary with an eye on green hydrogen

The Tapada do Outeiro combined cycle power plant celebrates its silver anniversary today. But the future of the plant will have to be decided in the next two years, since the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) expires at the end of the first quarter of 2024.

The plant is currently the largest in the country in terms of power (990 megawatts) and the project represented an investment of 700 million euros. Although the first gas-fired plant took place in December 1997, the industrial start-up took place in late 1999. The event will be celebrated today at an event attended by the Minister of the Environment Duarte Cordeiro.

For post-2024, the "TrustEnergy group is working on the development of a green hydrogen project, which if implemented, will make possible the gradual decarbonization of the Tapada do Outeiro plant, constituting itself as an anchor project in the production of green hydrogen for other industries.

The plant is owned by the Turbogás company, which in turn is owned by TrustEnergy, owned by the Japanese of Marubeni and the French of Engie.

"In the current context of energy transition, with great penetration of intermittent renewable energy, the Tapada do Outeiro power plant plays a decisive role in guaranteeing the security of supply, with its capacity to black start after a general grid blackout, and in supplying other essential services to the national electricity system," highlights the company.

"This plant meets the technical conditions necessary for the implementation of new technologies in development, such as green hydrogen, and after 25 years may again assume a pioneering and indispensable path in the energy transition," argues TrustEnergy.

The company states that "may promote the gradual decarbonization of the Tapada do Outeiro plant, constituting itself as an anchor project for the production of green hydrogen usable in other projects, while continuing to ensure other features, essential and indispensable to an efficient and safe management of the national grid.

The green hydrogen production project under study for this site "integrated the national application to IPCEI and was one of those selected by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking for the first European Hydrogen Week, held in late 2020, dedicated to the essential role of Hydrogen to meet the EU's commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050."

"Looking to the years ahead with the confidence of a project of the future, the Tapada do Outeiro power plant continues to occupy a prominent role in terms of the safety and reliability of the national electricity grid," said TrustEnergy CEO José Grácio in a statement.

The company has the second largest installed capacity in Portugal and is the fourth largest wind operator, TrustWind.

Trustenergy also owns 50 percent of Pego's 840-megawatt coal-fired plant, Elecgas, with the other 50 percent owned by Endesa. The two companies were also partners in the Pego coal plant, but Endesa won the tender to operate the connection point that belonged to this plant.