The vice-president of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha visits the new facilities of Eiffage Energía’s headquarters

April 21, 2021

Visit of the vice-president of the regional government. José Luis Martínez Guijarro, visited the Eiffage Energía facilities in Albacete, where he toured the new control and management building of the headquarters. During the visit, he was accompanied by the CEO of Eiffage Energía and delegate of Eiffage in Spain, José Manuel Martínez; the city’s mayor, Vicente Casañ; the deputy mayor of the city, Emilio Sáez; and the delegate of the Regional Government in the province of Albacete, Pedro Antonio Ruiz Santos. After the tour, Martínez Guijarro recalled that, through these projects aimed at renewable energies, the regional government wants to “continue being a pioneer and be at the forefront of renewable energies”. Something that will serve to generate productive fabric. In this way, he referred to Next Generation, “a programme in which the digital and green transition, together with territorial cohesion, are the fundamental pillars that converge in the Autonomous Community”. Thus, he announced that the regional government is contemplating 4 billion euros in 65 projects to consolidate and expand the Community’s leading position in the development of renewable energies. All of this is part of the Regional Plan to capture the funds from the Next Generation funds within the so-called ‘Component 2’, which represents 36 percent of the overall investment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHgyXQJxYWQ For his part, the Mayor of Albacete stressed that Eiffage Energía, a pioneering international company, is one of the strong companies “that contribute to the generation of wealth in our city, an example of sustainable success”. Vicente Casañ also referred to the Next Generation projects “aimed at making all areas of the city smarter, generating quality jobs”.

New building

In 2016, we started the ambitious project of the new headquarters of Eiffage Energía in Spain, at its historic location in Albacete, integrating all of the Group’s central services. The scope of the project includes the comprehensive renovation and expansion of the original facilities, including the remodelling and expansion of the office building; the construction of a new building for parking in a silo; and the complete redevelopment of the site, including parking, access and green areas, in an initial phase. In a second phase, completed in 2020, the innovative annex building has been completed, which houses, among other uses, the Control Centre. From this centre, solar power plants from all over the world are monitored, operated and maintained by the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) department. The facilities have a unique photovoltaic façade. In addition, the new building has 1,030 square meters of workspace, with a total of 80 workstations; 590 square meters of photovoltaic façade and 15 kW of extended photovoltaic power; three meeting rooms; two training rooms; printing areas; restrooms; and a training tent. Among the services included are O&M, Research Department and a warehouse on the first floor. The building is certified A for Energy Efficiency.

Control centre

Asset management is performed from the Control Centre. First, from the operational point of view, where the task of monitoring and control requires a quick response. And, second, from the preventive and predictive point of view. In this case, the behaviour of each installation analysed in greater depth. In addition, as José Manuel Martínez explained, “we have drones that allow us to generate three-dimensional models and maps with millimetric resolution of the solar plants”. The CEO of Eiffage Energía highlighted the Big Datasystem, whose algorithms, which we train with six million pieces of data, have been developed in-house. “With the volume of data we generate, we feed our big data and deep learning algorithms to train artificial intelligence and help us make the best solutions,” he said. In this regard, Mr Martínez says that “all this has been generated with the needs required by customers, to whom we provide value-added”. Currently, Eiffage Energía has two other monitoring centres in Spain. The one in Albacete groups the largest number of plants. The purpose of this resource is therefore to centralise remote control and monitoring tasks worldwide.