Endesa Generation building 20 megawatt solar power plant in Spanish industrial park

from www.solarbuzz.com

ENDESA Generation has received a municipal permit to build a 20.1 MW photovoltaic solar energy system on land situated in the Guadarranque industrial park in San Roque (Cadiz).

The first stage of the system will have 12.3 MW of installed power and will cover 37 hectares. ENDESA Generation will start work on this stage in July. In all, the system will have production capacity of 36 GWh per year – the power required to supply a town such as Torremolinos. It will also prevent 13,300 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

Also, system production will increase during the summer months due to the higher number of daylight hours and this will help meet the significant rise in demand in Andalusia in the summer. Power evacuation is achieved via a line which will also be built soon. The site is situated near an industrial park in expansion, so power evacuation is not a problem for existing electricity grids. To date, ENDESA Generation has completed all the engineering work required for the construction of the system.

The equipment supplier (current reversers and transformers) is currently being selected from the major domestic and international suppliers. ENDESA’s cogeneration and renewables division (ECyR) will be responsible for running the plant. The decision to build a plant using this type of technology responds to environmental criteria as these facilities produce no greenhouse gases whatsoever. Also, selecting the plant’s site obeyed a series of climatological and economic criteria.

The location is ideal not only because of the amount of solar radiation it receives but also because photovoltaic cells work better near the coast, where average summer temperatures are cooler. The plant has been designed to follow solar radiation – the most straightforward configuration, requiring moderate maintenance and which allows the Group to make the best use of the available land.

The project forms part of ENDESA’s strategic plan for the development of clean energies, which contemplates 100 MW of new plant using solar energy in the next five years. The project confirms ENDESA's firm commitment to photovoltaic solar energy. Proof of can be found in other installations that ENDESA is executing in its thermal power plants throughout the Spanish mainland and islands.