In all the countries where Enel is present, the New Life project has been developed, looking to promote the reuse and a new sustainable life for equipment and spare parts. This initiative targets coal-fired power plants that have been closed or are in the process of being closed.
The main mission of this project is to identify all equipment and spare parts remaining in the plant, transfer them to other Enel-owned facilities in the same country and/or other countries, and subsequently manage movements to external entities. For optimal achievement, it is key to have an organized procedure that involves different actors and points of view. For this reason, the New Life project has determined three specific phases:
First, a preliminary analysis is performed, which is in charge of each country's Operation and Maintenance Improvement (OMI) area. It involves the analysis, classification, and prioritization of the warehouses and equipment of each plant, for example, residual life, other possible uses, and other destinations, among others. Once this analysis is done, innovation and teamwork play an important role in developing new opportunities for each plant's equipment valorization and spare parts. Using as input the mapping of ongoing initiatives and through methodologies such as Agile or Design Thinking and specialized support from consultants, partners, and suppliers, new ideas are generated and recorded in a matrix of opportunities. Finally, the identified opportunities are managed and followed up, which can be reused within the company, sold, donated, or treated as scrap.
In Chile's case, the New Life project has been implemented in the Tarapacá coal-fired power plants and unit 1 of Bocamina, which in 2021 generated a profit from relocation and internal sales of 10,624 2021 and pending for 2022 of 1,456,692 euros.