Commissioning of Calheta III Hydropower Plant (37.5 MW) in Madeira

Gamesa Electric has successfully commissioned the installation of two horizontal generators for Calheta III hydropower plant, located in the municipalities of Calheta and Ponta do Sol in Madeira (Portugal).

Calheta III is part of the plan to get 50% of all yearly electricity consumption in the Portuguese island from renewable energy sources. The project has been developed with support from EU funding and is completed with additional wind and PV power plants.

For this project, we have supplied two 18.75 MW horizontal hydro generators for that triples the previous plant’s hydroelectric power production capacity.

Energy from the plant will be connected to a network serving more than 130,000 consumers in the residential, business and public sectors, and about 800 producers of electricity from renewable sources. The upgrades to the Calheta power plant will bring about a net increase in production of electricity from renewable sources of 79.3 gigawatt hours.

To prevent a blackout in case of a failure in one generator, the system counts with two diesel generators. This means that the operation is beyond efficient optimization.