Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Posted by : John Ross on Mar 20, 2007 - 12:44 PM environment

The world's largest solar power facility has been inaugurated in the Navarrese municipality of Milagro. OK, I understand you may think this is not really a travel story, but the Monte Alto facility is remarkable for a number of reasons, apart from its superlative size, which is after all a record likely to be broken in the very near future. The neo-cooperative-type economic model followed (ths type of installation has been charmingly christened a "solar garden" by its promotor, referring not to a flower garden but to a market garden - it's much clearer in Spanish as huerta solar); the curious, encouraging history of the facility's promotor, Acciona; and the fact that Navarre itself is currently bewilderingly in the centre of Spanish public attention, all make this a first-rate human-interest story. Plus, though Milagro itself is no great shakes, Navarre's La Ribera region is a great area to visit. Read more, or visit Navarre.

*The photo shows "Hundreds of owners at the opening ceremony of the Monte Alto solar garden in Navarre, Spain," and is courtesy of ACCIONA.

The Monte Alto facility is photovoltaic, which means it actually generates electricity from light (as opposed to a thermal installation which captures solar heat). It consists of nearly 900 state-of-the-art solar panels (I include the company's press release as a footnote for those who are really interested in the technical stuff), most of which have "automated solar tracking" so that they follow the sun across the sky, like sunflowers. Its capacity is 9.55 MWp, which means MegaWatt-peak (I had to look it up), and an estimated output of 14 million kilowatt-hours per annum. Which may not be much compared with the 230 MW of a small coal-fuelled power station, but, hey, you have to begin somewhere, and it is enough to provide around 5,000 homes with electricity.

The "solar garden" label is, evidently, one from the marketing boys, but is interestingly appropriate, apart from being slightly poetic. The area of Navarre where Monte Alto lies is La Ribera, the basin of the River Ebro as it flows through that province towards Catalonia, and is a traditional market garden area, famous for its asparagus, tomatoes, peppers and so on. Also, the Monte Alto facility actually looks in context - a photo in El País shows the solar panels sitting in rows on the typical, reddish-hued soil, next to an orchard of olive trees, lined up in the same, parallel rows. And the owners are 750-odd individuals, though evidently there is a single system for outputting the power to the grid, not unlike the communal acequías, systems of irrigation channels in use since the times of the Moorish occupation of Spain.

The promotor, Acciona Solar, has put nine of these projects into operation so far in Spain, and is turning its attention to a bigger world - there seems to be a solar garden on the drawing board in Nevada, for example. But if "Acciona" sounds familiar to you from reading these pages, it is likely to be because its parent company, originally a construction group, also owns Trasmediterránea, Spain's largest ferry company. Or, if you are thoroughly up to date with international financial news, you might know the name from Acciona's sharpness in taking advantage of a power struggle for Endesa, Spain's largest electricity utility, to grab a major shareholding. But to return to Acciona Energía, the direct owner of the solar power filiate, this is dedicated to "alternative" forms of energy, notably being the biggest wind power company in the world.

Related links:
Acciona Solar: http://www.aesol.es
Acciona Energía: http://www.acciona-energia.com
Acciona: http://www.acciona.es
Milagro Town Council: http://www.milagro.es

The company's press release reads:

ACCIONA inaugurates the highest production photovoltaic plant in the world in Navarre (Spain)

* The 'Monte Alto' solar garden at Milagro, developed and operated by the company, has a capacity of 9.55 MWp and will generate 14 million kWh a year

* It belongs to 753 private owners who have invested 65 million euros overall
* The opening ceremony was attended by the President of the Government of Navarre, Miguel Sanz, and the President of ACCIONA, José Manuel Entrecanales
* Also present were the majority of the owners of these solar installations

This weekend ACCIONA Solar inaugurated the Monte Alto solar garden at Milagro (Navarre). It is the photovoltaic installation with the highest production capacity in the world (14 million kilowatt-hours per annum). It is also the one of greatest capacity under a system of shared ownership, with 9.55 megawatts (MWp) distributed among 753 owners. The total investment is around 65 million euros. The event was attended by the President of the Government of Navarre, Miguel Sanz, and the President of ACCIONA, José Manuel Entrecanales.

Also present, and accompanied by their families, were most of the owners of the huerta solar (solar garden), a concept created and patented by ACCIONA. It represents the grouping of small individually-owned photovoltaic installations on a single site, sharing infrastructures and services with the aim of optimising their management and energy efficiency.

The Monte Alto solar garden at Milagro is the seventh developed by ACCIONA Solar en Navarre and the ninth in Spain. Overall installed capacity is 23 MW, through around three thousand automated solar monitoring structures. They represent a total investment of 177 million euros shared among over 2,000 owners.

Clean power for over five thousand homes

The Monte Alto solar garden covers a surface area of 51 hectares on agricultural land near the locality of Milagro. It contains 889 solar structures, of which 864 are equipped with automated solar tracking. The rest are fixed structures adapted to the relief of the terrain. The first are mounted on Buskil trackers developed by ACCIONA Solar: 308 are of the K-12 model, with 11 kilowatts (kW) rated power each, with a total surface area of 100 m2 to capture the sun's rays. The remaining 556 are of the K-6 model, with 5 kW rated power and 50 m2.

The forecast 14 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) annual production of the solar garden is equivalent to the electricity consumption of around five thousand homes. The facility will avoid the emission of around 13,454 metric tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere, -taking a coal-fired power plant as a reference- with a cleaning effect on the atmosphere similar to that of 673,000 trees in the process of photosynthesis.

Connected to the grid last December, this solar garden has constituted a major challenge for ACCIONA Solar in terms of technology and management. Its size meant, for example, the digging of 30 kilometres of ditches for electrical ducting, 90 kilometres of pipes and 3,900 metres into the earth to house the rods that support the trackers, plus the use of 6,000 m3 of concrete. The structures support a total of 52,706 photovoltaic modules, involving the use of more than 230,000 nuts, bolts and washers.

An investment of 177 million euros

Since it built the first photovoltaic solar garden at Sesma (Navarre) in 2002, ACCIONA Solar has attracted investment ofr 177 million euros from over two thousand owners, who have become producers of clean electricity. In five years the company has developed seven solar gardens in Navarre with a total capacity of 20 MWp, and another two in Castilla-La Mancha -where it is currently building two more- and has projects at different stages of development in a number of Spanish regions.

A standard individual installation of 5 kW rated power of the type installed in these solar gardens represents an investment of around 52,000 euros (excluding VAT, although this tax can be recovered). A higher investment can also be made -just over one million euros- in installations of up to 100 kW.

The yield from these installations is somewhere between 8 and 10% and the amortization of the investment is estimated at around 10 years. The income generated from the sale of electricity to the grid basically covers financial expenses.

The production of electricity of photovoltaic origin is remunerated at a price equivalent to 575% of the Spanish reference rate (TRM) for the first 25 years and 460% from then on, according to Royal Decree 436/2004, which updates the legal and economic framework for the production of electricity under the Special Regime. For 2007, 575% of the TRM is equivalent to 0.440381 euros/kWh.

Corporate information

ACCIONA Energía is the world leader in the renewables sector with 4,502 MW installed in different technologies. In wind power it has implemented 4,357 MW in 163 windparks located in 10 countries, of which 3,133 MW are participated in by the company. It has three biomass plants- one of them a 25 MW straw-fired facility- and 59 MW in small hydro power stations. In solar energy it has installed 29 MW of photovoltaic power and is currently developing the biggest plant photovoltaic in the world in Portugal (42 MW in the first phase); in thermal solar power it has put 24 MW into service and is currently building the biggest plant of this type in the world in the last 15 years in the United States. It produces 1,500 kW wind turbines using in-house technology and quality homologated biodiesel, and also bioethanol from wine-surplus alcohol. It belongs to the ACCIONA Group, one of the main national and international corporations in the development and management of infrastructures, services and renewable energy sources. In 2006 ACCIONA recorded a turnover of 6,272 million € (+29.3%), an EBITDA of 960 million euros (+29.2%e), an operating profit of 630 million € (+23.1%) and an attributable net result of 1,370 million € (+322.8%). ACCIONA is quoted on the IBEX-35 (ANA.MC) selective index with a capitalisation of 9,400 million euros in March 2007.