Bocamina power station
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The Bocamina power station is a 497-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant operated by Empresa Nacional De Electricidad (Endesa) in Coronel, VII Region, Chile.
Contents
Location
The undated satellite photo below shows the plant, which is near Coronel, VII Region, Chile.
Background
Launched in 2006, the Bocamina II project is an expansion of the pre-existing Bocamina I power plant, which dates to 1970.[1] In 2007, Bocamina II received its environmental permit pursuant to an EIA (environmental impact assessment). However, after a 2008 design modification intended to increase the plant's safety, performance and generating capacity (from 350MW to 370MW), the national fishermen's alliance Confepach (Confederación Nacional de Federaciones de Pescadores Artesanales de Chile) demanded that the plant be required to obtain a new EIA, and in July 2012, Chile's Supreme Court ruled in Confepach's favor. [2]
In December 2013, in response to a new suit filed on behalf of local fishermen, Concepción's court of appeals ordered that Unit 2 be shut down indefinitely, citing the plant's failure to obtain the required environmental impact report.[3] In January 2014 Chile's environmental regulator also halted operations temporarily at the adjacent Bocamina I plant [4], but that unit returned to service in February 2014.[5]
In August 2014 Bocamina II was fined $4.7 billion pesos for environmental violations, and these sanctions were upheld in March 2015 by the Environmental Court of Valdivia.[6] In April 2015 regulators issued a permit for Bocamina II to return to service pending installation of a state-of-the-art filtration system designed to protect marine life.[7] In July 2015, Endesa announced that the Bocamina II plant had resumed operations.[8]
In April 2017, the Chilean environmental agency SMA (Superintendencia del Medio Ambiente) fined the Bocamina plant 575 million Chilean pesos for excessive emissions of pollutants in 2014, including sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter.[9]
Planned retirement
In June 2019 the Chilean government announced that the plant would be retired by December 2023 as part of a plan to reduce the country's annual CO2 emissions from the current 30 million tonnes (tons) to four million by 2024.[10] The general manager of the plant stated that the second unit would be retired by 2040.[11]
Environmental impact
Coal ash from the plant has been blamed for an increase in respiratory diseases, cases of cancer, and pulmonary fibrosis in nearby communities.[12]
Project Details
- Sponsor: Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (Endesa)
- Parent company:
- Location: Coronel, VII Region, Chile
- Coordinates: -37.0218, -73.1663 (exact)
- Status:
- Unit 1: Operating
- Unit 2: Operating
- Gross Capacity:
- Unit 1: 127MW
- Unit 2: 370MW
- Type: Subcritical
- In service: Unit 1: 1970; Unit 2: 2012
- Coal Type: Bituminous
- Coal Source:
- Source of financing:
Articles and resources
References
- ↑ "Coal-Fired Plants in Chile ", Industcards, December 2011.
- ↑ "Central termoeléctrica Bocamina II ", Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, October 2012.
- ↑ "Paralizan termoeléctrica Bocamina 2: ecologistas celebran en Coronel", La Nación, December 17, 2013.
- ↑ "Regulator orders halt to Endesa Chile's Bocamina I power plant", Reuters, January 29, 2014.
- ↑ "Regulator lifts suspension on Endesa Chile's Bocamina I plant", Reuters, February 7, 2014.
- ↑ "Confirman sanciones en contra de central termoeléctrica Bocamina II", Diario UChile, March 28, 2015.
- ↑ "Endesa Chile to bring Bocamina II power plant back online", Fox News Latino, May 27, 2015.
- ↑ "Endesa anuncia reinicio de operaciones de central termoeléctrica Bocamina II", La Tercera, July 2, 2015.
- ↑ "Multan a termoeléctrica Bocamina 1 de Coronel por sobrepasar norma de emisiones contaminante,", Resumen, April 5, 2017.
- ↑ Chile to close eight coal-fired stations by 2024, IEEFA, Jun., 2019
- ↑ Alcalde de Coronel y agrupaciones rechazan el anuncio de cierre de Bocamina I, Canal 9, Jun. 4, 2019
- ↑ Gerente de Enel niega que plantas de Bocamina sean responsables de la contaminación por metales pesados en Coronel, El Mostrador, Jun. 21, 2019
