As part of the course entitled "Techno-economics of the electricity sector", students from the Energy and Markets program visited the EDF power plant in Vaires-sur-Marne, Seine-et-Marne, on 27 May.
The Vaires power plant is part of the combustion turbine operating centre, which includes 13 power generation units spread over 6 sites in France: 2 in Brittany and 4 in Ile-de-France. The Vaires site consists of 3 combustion turbines with a unit capacity of 185 MW and produces enough electricity to power a city of 500,000 inhabitants. Combustion turbines play a crucial role in ensuring security of supply. Their extremely fast start-up time (less than 30 minutes) offers the flexibility to be able to respond effectively to variations in consumption, in support of the development of renewable energies.
Students were also able to visit the telecontrol centre, which controls all the combustion turbines in the area. This is an opportunity for them to understand the challenges faced by the teams in the field to guarantee the quality of operation, reliability of supply and coupling of the turbines in the network.