Spanish renewable energy developer X-Elio has started commercial operations at the 368MW Lorca Solar project in Spain, its largest in the country.
The project is located in Murcia, south-eastern Spain, and joins an X-Elio portfolio that consists of 14 solar PV projects with a combined capacity of 846MW. The project represents a total investment of €335 million (US$ 377.9 million) and X-Elio noted that the facility had been financed by Banco Santander, the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) and Unicaja.
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X-Elio also noted that the project was designed in such a way as to integrate electricity generation “with its natural and social surroundings,” pointing out that 400 hectares of land has been allocated to work such as habitat restoration and allowing sheep to graze in the area.
While the company stopped short of calling the project an agrivoltaics (agriPV) facility, the integration of solar generation with agricultural practices has become more common in Spain since the government’s decision to make agriPV projects eligible for subsidies last year. Then, in February this year, Spanish utility Endesa started commercial operations at a 131MW agriPV portfolio in Andalusia.
The developer added that it has already signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) for the project with health and life sciences companies Thermo Fisher Scientific, GSK, Haleon and Gilead Sciences and US paint supplier the Sherwin-Williams Company. Last year, X-Elio signed a virtual PPA with the same pharmaceutical companies for the generation of a 369MW solar project in Spain as part of the Energize programme.
X-Elio is owned by global investor Brookfield Asset Management, which has sought to expand its presence in Europe in the past year. In June, the investor partnered with Mitsubishi to own and operate a 570MW portfolio of European renewable energy assets and in March merged its subsidiaries Finlight and Atrato Onsite Energy as part of plans to expand their operational European solar portfolio to 2GW by 2030.
