On November 30, 2023, an official ceremony was held in Cartagena for the entry into the Spanish Navy of the lead large non-nuclear submarine S 81 Isaac Peral of the Spanish national project S-80 Plus (S-80A), built there at the enterprise of the Spanish shipbuilding association Navantia. Isaac Peral became the first new submarine to enter service in the Spanish navy since 1985.
The lead Spanish submarine S 81 Isaac Peral of the national project S-80 Plus before commissioning. Cartagena, 11/30/2023 (c) Gines Soriano / www.infodefensa.com
Thus, the first stage of the Navantia design and construction program for the Spanish Navy of four large non-nuclear submarines of the national S-80 project (then modified into the S-80 Plus / S-80A project), which turned into a long-term construction epic, came to a successful conclusion.
The design of a promising submarine of the S-80 program was started in Spain back in 1991. The contract for the construction of four boats of this project was issued by the Spanish navy to the Izar association (now Navantia) in March 2004, with the planned delivery of the lead boat in 2011. The construction of the lead boat S 81 Isaac Peral was started at Izar (now Navantia) in Cartagena in 2005, and the other three from 2007 to 2010. Due to financial and technical problems and design errors, the construction of the boats was delayed for a long period, required repeated redesigns and alterations, and the planned cost of the ships increased from the contracted 1.756 billion euros to the currently planned 4 billion euros.
The lead boat S 81 Isaac Peral was pumped out of the boathouse of the Cartagena shipyard only on April 16, 2021, the ceremony of launching the boat (formal launching) into the floating dock was performed on April 22, 2021, and the real physical launching from the floating dock was performed on May 7, 2021. The boat entered factory sea trials on May 27, 2022, and as a result, the tests and completions stretched for another year and a half.
Initially, all S-80 boats were planned to be equipped with an air-independent power plant (VNEU), the creation of which was carried out by the Spanish energy company Abengoa with the participation of Navantia since 2003, but its development was also significantly delayed. The Spanish air-independent power plant for submarines of the S-80 project is based on the principle of decomposition of bioethanol (BioEtOH) in special Coprox processor reactors to produce high purity hydrogen. The resulting hydrogen, along with oxygen, is fed into fuel cells developed by UTC Power. Oxygen is stored in liquid form in a cryogenic high-pressure tank. The carbon dioxide produced by the decomposition of bioethanol is removed overboard in a mixture with seawater. The power of the VNEU of the submarine of the S-80 Plus project is "at least 300 kW", and the duration of the stay and course of the boat in the underwater position should be 15 days.
Only in February 2020, the Navantia association announced the successful completion of bench tests of this VNEU and its readiness for mass production. Delays in development led to the decision to install VNEU under construction only on the third (S 83 Cosme García) and fourth (S 84 Mateo García de los Reyes) submarines of the S-80 Plus project out of four under construction - it is planned (optimistically) that these two boats will enter service with the Spanish Navy only in 2027-2028 years. The first two boats of this type (S 81 Isaac Peral and S 82 Narciso de Monturiol) were completed as diesel-electric and should be equipped with VNEU only during their first medium repairs. Now the launch of the second boat under construction, the S 82 Narciso de Monturiol, is scheduled for the last quarter of 2024, and commissioning is scheduled for the end of 2025.
The submarines of the S-80 Plus project are large ships, having a total underwater displacement of 3,700 tons and a maximum length of 80.81 m.
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The ceremony of commissioning of the Spanish Navy of the lead Spanish submarine S 81 Isaac Peral of the national project S-80 Plus before commissioning. Cartagena, 11/30/2023 (c) Gines Soriano / www.infodefensa.com
Video (from) www.infodefensa.com