Spanish independent power producer (IPP) BNZ has started commercial operations at a portfolio of solar PV projects in Spain with a combined capacity of 150MW.
The portfolio consists of three projects—Hornosol, Terrera and Ventura—in the province of Almería in the Andalusia region in southern Spain. The company now operates nine PV projects in the country, and plans to start commercial operations at a fourth project, named Alhamilla, in Almería “in the coming months”, which will add another 32MW of operational capacity to the portfolio.
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“Andalusia is a strategic region in our development plan due to its high solar potential and the strong commitment of institutions to the energy transition,” said BNZ CEO Luis Selva. “In addition, the projects developed in Almería represent a decisive step in our roadmap and reinforce our commitment to continue expanding our installed capacity in Spain, one of the priority markets in our renewable energy project portfolio in Europe.”
Spain has long been a leader in the European solar sector, with more than 35GW of capacity in operation, and the government has sought to incentivise investments in areas outside of the utility-scale sector. Earlier this month, the government allocated up to €200 million (US$232 million) to support the deployment of “innovative” renewable energy projects, such as agrivoltaics, floating solar PV and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
The emphasis on the latter technology is perhaps a response to the blackout that shook the Spanish and Portuguese energy grids earlier this year. While over-voltage was ultimately found to be the cause of the blackout, not an over-reliance on renewable energy as some had speculated, the episode highlighted vulnerabilities in both countries’ electricity grids, that greater deployment of battery storage projects could help overcome.
