Profile #4 — The post-blackout winners club: location dictates, owner ranks

Fourth and final of the series “Profiles of the post-blackout club”. Previous: Arrubal, Castejón, Amorebieta. Here we connect the pieces.

The three previous posts covered three very different winners of the post-blackout reshuffle. Each with its own pattern: Arrubal hibernation-to-base, Castejón rare-peaker-to-base, Amorebieta active-to-5-months-saturation. Three operators with opposite corporate profiles: a US PE firm (KKR/ContourGlobal), a European supermajor (TotalEnergies), a commodities trader (Castleton/Axpo).

What do they share? And more importantly: what does the ensemble say about how Operación Reforzada selects winners?

The four curves in one chart

It’s visually clear:

• Three north-interior corridor curves (Arrubal red, Castejón blue, Escatrón orange) start from very different pre-blackout levels but converge to the same post-blackout level — a common floor around 10-15 €M/month
• Amorebieta (green) is always higher — it was already a more active asset than the north-interior cluster — but its curve has a different shape: spike-and-return in the 5 critical months, not a sustained step like the other three

That’s the first macro finding: two different patterns coexisted in the post-blackout reshuffle, not one.

Pattern A: “Hibernation → north-interior corridor base load”

Followed by Arrubal (ContourGlobal), Castejón (TotalEnergies), Escatrón 3 (Repsol), and secondarily Castelnou (Engie). Features:

• Pre-blackout: low to sporadic use (capacity factor below 10% on technical constraints)
• The switch happens the month of the blackout
• Post-blackout: sustained semi-continuous use (200-650 hours/month)
• Stable prices (€170-260/MWh)
• Consistent behavior across all plants in the cluster

It’s a grid phenomenon: REE identified nodes in the Aragón-Navarra-La Rioja corridor as necessary for Operación Reforzada and activated local CCGTs as a block, regardless of owner. Geography dictates, owner is secondary.

Pattern B: “Temporary saturation in northern coastal zones”

Followed by Amorebieta. Possibly also some Catalonia plants (Tarragona Power, Besós 4) though less extreme. Features:

• Pre-blackout: normal-active use (NOT hibernation)
• The switch happens the month of the blackout
• Post-blackout: 3-5 months of operation at maximum capacity (~744 hours/month), then return
• Coincides with northern coastal regions with high local demand + interconnection with peninsular wind
• Not uniform within the cluster — the neighboring plant (BBE in Vizcaya) loses while Amorebieta wins

Here owner/operator matters. Amorebieta wins because Axpo runs it well commercially; BBE loses because the Gunvor+EVE joint venture has different commercial incentives.

The unifying thesis

After the four profiles, what emerges is a two-level thesis:

Level 1 — Geography decides who’s in the game

The nodes where the grid needs synchronous capacity post-Operación Reforzada are defined by electrical topology + variable renewable penetration. Those nodes are:

• North-interior corridor (Aragón / Navarra / La Rioja) — saturated wind
• Southwest Andalucía (Cádiz / Huelva) — saturated solar
• Some Mediterranean north / Vizcaya zones — coastal wind + high demand

CCGTs in these nodes are eligible candidates for Operación Reforzada. CCGTs elsewhere (Galicia, centre, Levante) are structurally outside the game — regardless of owner.

Level 2 — Within an eligible cluster, owner determines ranking

In very homogeneous clusters (north interior), all plants win — owner matters little. In mixed clusters (Vizcaya, Catalonia, Cartagena), owner/operator matters a lot:

• Commercial strategy (Axpo aggressive vs BBE passive)
• Technical availability (long maintenance vs continuous operation)
• Unit characteristics (ramp rate, efficiency, age)

REE isn’t operator-blind, but it uses geography as the first filter and owner/operator as a second-level selection.

Matrix: where geography dominates, where owner dominates

The matrix makes visible how geography × owner explains ranking:

• Southwest Andalucía: green across — all owners win
• North interior: green across — all owners win, with non-utility players (PE, supermajor) winning more in relative terms because they start from a lower base
• Southeast (Cartagena): mixed — winners and losers from the same owner (Naturgy Cartagena 2 wins, Cartagena 3 loses)
• Vizcaya / north coast: Amorebieta (Castleton/Axpo) wins, BBE (Gunvor+EVE) loses — owner determines
• Catalonia: Besós 4 (Naturgy) wins, Besós 5 (Endesa) loses, Tarragona Power (Iberdrola) wins, Plana del Vent (Alpiq) loses — owner determines
• Galicia and centre: red across — all owners lose, regardless of operator

Implications for the next stage of renewable penetration

Three final readings:

1. A CCGT’s value depends on the node, not on the MWh. An 800 MW CCGT in La Rioja is worth more than an 800 MW one in Galicia. Economic value has decoupled from nameplate capacity and attached to grid position.

2. The next increment of renewables will grow these clusters, not birth new ones. If Andalucía and Aragón keep growing in solar and wind respectively, the CCGTs in Cádiz, Huelva, Navarra and La Rioja will keep gaining weight. CCGTs in Galicia or centre aren’t going to “recover” — they’re geographically excluded from the regime.

3. Private equity and specialist traders are well-positioned. ContourGlobal (KKR) and Castleton (via Axpo) are the two PE/trading operators most exposed to the reshuffle, and both are among the biggest relative winners. Not coincidental: these structures have more aggressive commercial incentives and less portfolio drag than incumbent utilities, letting them better capture Operación Reforzada’s selective flow.

Series wrap-up

The four-profile series shows that the hidden cost of RT3 — the €3,870M/year Operación Reforzada pays the synchronous fleet — isn’t distributed uniformly among utilities. It concentrates in specific grid nodes, and within those nodes rewards operators that bid aggressively.

For anyone modeling future system cost, this pattern matters more than aggregate figures. The key question is no longer “how much will RT3 grow?“. It’s “which new nodes will enter the Operación Reforzada regime as the transition advances?“. And, within those nodes, “which operators will be positioned to capture them?“.

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The data is open in ESIOS Data — ask about units, complexes, corridors, or the redispatch regime you’re interested in.