<article><p class="lead">Spain has registered its first full day without any coal-fired power generation in its peninsular system, as wind output hit a record high, grid operator REE said today.</p><p>Mainland Spain went coal free from 23:50 local time on 13 December until 21:20 on 15 December, Preliminary data show — making 14 December the first day of no coal burn since REE records began.</p><p>The historic development was achieved only in the peninsular system, as coal-fired output continued in the non-peninsular area of the Balearic islands.</p><p>Wind power generation in peninsular Spain reached its highest daily volume on 13 December, at <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2036105">an hourly average of 16.41GW</a>, with strong output continuing into the morning of 14 December.</p><p>Coal-fired generation on 14 December was originally forecast at 252MWh in hour 1, 251MWh in hour 2 and 180MWh in hour 3 on the PBF day-ahead basic schedule, but was later dropped to zero for all hours in the final schedule for the day.</p><p>Output from coal-fired plants only returned on 21:30 on 15 December, REE data show.</p><p>Spain registered periods of very low coal-fired generation last summer, but did not go coal free in any single hour because of technical constraints in the distribution network in the northern region of Asturias. </p><p>Portuguese utility EDP's 562MW Abono 2 facility was <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/1978762">the only one of 25 coal-fired power units</a> in mainland Spain to operate on several days in the summer. And in many cases it only entered the PBF schedule with small volumes in hours 1-3, because a coal-fired plant usually needs between one and three hours to fully stop. "It is an almost mandatory operation, so offers can be usually made below cost when a unit operated the previous day," EDP said then.</p><p>Generation data for individual units are only published 90 days after actual dates. Data from European grid association Entso-E show that there was no planned maintenance or outage recorded for Abono 2 on 14-15 December, and EDP did not immediately reply to queries from <i>Argus</i> on whether Abono 2 was the plant originally scheduled to operate on hours 1-3 on 14 December.</p><p><i>By Juan Weik</i></p></article>
