Italian energy company Enel’s subsidiary Enel Green Power has started construction of two renewable energy projects including one solar and one wind farm, with total capacity of 71.3MW in Spain.
The two renewable projects include a 50MW Los Naranjos solar plant in Andalusia and the 21.3MW Los Gigantes wind farm in Aragon.
The Los Naranjos solar plant, located in the town of Carmona, Seville province in the autonomous community of Andalusia, will be powered by 128,520 solar panels. The solar plant is expected to be completed by the end of this year and is being built with an investment of €28.2m.
To support the solar plant, Enel will also build 9 switching stations, an electric substation and an underground cable network spanning 4.5km.
Once operational, the solar plant could generate about 100GWh of clean energy and help avoid about 67,000 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere annually.
The solar plant will join another plant being constructed by Enel, the 50MW Las Corchas plant in Carmona. Together, the two facilities are the company’s biggest solar plants developed in Andalusia till date.
Enel stated: “These plants will be built under sustainable engineering criteria, whereby Enel Green Power’s “Sustainable Construction Site” model will be applied.
“This model envisages the installation of PV panels to meet some of the energy needs during the construction works and water saving measures by installing deposits and rain collection systems.”
Enel is also building the 21.3MW Los Gigantes wind farm
In the autonomous community of Aragon, Enel is also building the 21.3MW Los Gigantes wind farm, located in the towns of Blesa and Moyuela in the Teruel and Zaragoza provinces.
Being built with an investment of €20m, the wind farm will be powered by six wind turbines each with 3.55MW and will generate about 62GWh of clean energy annually. Once operational, the wind farm can help to avoid about 40,000 tons of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere each year.
Last November, the company had built and connected to grid, the Sierra Costera I wind farm, with 50MW of capacity. The project was built at a cost of €45m.
The construction of the two renewable energy projects in the regions of Aragón and Andalusia are part of the company’s strategy to fully decarbonize its generation mix by 2050.
Enel also plans to achieve 10.2GW of installed renewable capacity by 2022 in Spain, up from the 7.4GW installed capacity at the end of last year.
