Spanish car manufacturer SEAT will integrate the roof of its Martorell site in Spain with photovoltaic solar panels within the framework of its project ‘SEAT Al Sol’. This is the company’s environmental conservation project aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The SEAT Al Sol project has been developed in partnership with GA-Solar to decentralize the generation of electric energy, this means that the solar PV energy will be both produced and consumed on-site. BIPV technology will be installed on the workshops and a factory covering a total area of 320,000m2. The installation will involve 10MW of PV panels generating more than 13 million kW/h of solar electricity annually.
The project has already been pre-registered with the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce and construction of the initial phase, with an output of 4MW of grid-connected power. Once up and running, the plant will be the second-largest BIPV facility in terms of clean electricity production in Spain and one of the largest in Europe.
The plant is due to begin electricity production in early 2010 and will be fully operational before the end of the year. The budgeted investment for implementing the first phase is approximately €17 million.