Spanish power company Iberdrola and the sovereign wealth fund of Norway will invest in 1.3GW of renewable capacity in Spain, with solar PV projects accounting for 80% of the capacity.
While 137MW of this capacity is currently in operation, in renewable facilities in Castilla-La Mancha and Aragon, the rest of the capacity will come from new clean power projects.
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Iberdrola has not announced a timeframe for construction on these projects, but the company has set the value of these investments at around €1.2 billion (US$1.3 billion), and noted that the projects could meet the electricity demands of more than 700,000 Spanish homes.
Iberdrola told Spain’s National Securities Market Commission, the body responsible for the assessment of Spanish securities markets, that the groups have “obtained all the legal requirements to carry out the licence” of the projects.
Both Iberdrola and the Norwegian fund are optimistic about the future of the scheme, with the groups planning to add more than 500MW of additional capacity to the pipeline of projects in future.
The wave of projects are Iberdrola’s latest in Spain. The company already operates 2.2GW of solar power in the country, part of its massive 40.4GW global renewable portfolio. The Norwegian wealth fund, which is managed by Norges Bank, Norway’s central investment bank, is a much newer player in the renewable space, with the Iberdrola partnership just the group’s second renewable investment.
However, the bank has unveiled ambitious renewable plans for its portfolio of projects, announcing last September that it aims for every company under its umbrella to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. With more than 9,000 companies in this portfolio, and the fund eager to invest following a US$84 billion profit in first second quarter of this year, the bank’s commitment to solar power could help make a striking difference in the sector.
The news follows Iberdrola’s installation of new solar facilities in Australia, Brazil and Spain earlier this year, which pushed the company’s total installed capacity above 4.5GW.