The power plants belonging to the Veolia Group had already succeeded at several MAVIR accreditation procedures. The combined-cycle power plant in Nyíregyháza, one of the eastern sites of PANNONGREEN Kft., decided to take part in system regulation a few years ago, and after consultation with MAVIR, the Hungarian electricity transmission operator, it was first accredited in 2019, then again in 2021 after an improvement of the regulation’s quality.
The combined-cycle power plant in Debrecen, also member of the Veolia Group, fulfilled the requirements of a tertiary (manually operated) accreditation in 2020. The plant started a cooperation with the Power Plant of Budapest in 2021 and relying on its experiences, a quality change was achieved, and the second (automatically operated) accreditation was obtained in 2021 May.
Based on the previous results, the experts of Veolia defined several further objectives in relation to the operation and accreditation of the power plants. The Debrecen plant increased their regulation range, which allows them to apply for capacity tenders with a higher ramping speed requirement. The experiences in Nyíregyháza showed that the plant could be more actively used in secondary regulation with higher requirements, so the aim was to obtain this accreditation soon.
All the three tests carried out in the plant of Debrecen were declared successful by MAVIR, so the new service can start from May 1st, 2023. The objectives set by the power plant for the whole year had been practically accomplished during the first semester already.
Thanks to the accreditation, the number of applicable tenders, the capacity to offer and thus the turnover will increase. The cooperation in the system regulation is considered to be an excellent result because this power plant, as the first independent power generator of the country, was designed not only to satisfy the heat demands, but for baseload production to make up for the distribution network’s losses.
In the combined-cycle power plant of Nyíregyháza, tests were carried out first to make sure that the combined cycle technology can fulfil the strict requirements. After careful preparations and measurements, the first accreditation of the second regulation circle was finalised in the spring of 2022.
The challenge for this year’s heating season was how to use the whole capacity range of the power plant and increase the regulation capacity. The Nyíregyháza plant applied for a second accreditation in February of 2023. What was interesting is that the test was run on the heat recovery boiler using post- combustion, which is less usual for combined cycle power plants. Following the signals given by MAVIR at the appropriate speed and by precisely respecting the required timetable, the program ended with success.
The example of the power plant of Debrecen helped the Nyíregyháza plant to reach maximum exploitation in secondary regulation, as did the expertise and the operational experience of the operational staff in the company.