Iberdrola has constructed 500-megawatt PV project

• It has taken Iberdrola only a year to finish the construction of Núñez de Balboa, which is considered the largest European PV facility.

Almost €300m has been invested in the project. The 500MW facility is scheduled to become operational in Q1 of the coming year. The plant covers a 1,000ha area including three municipalities of Badajoz (Bienvenida, Hinojosa del Valle, and Usagre). MITECO has granted the project permit for commissioning, and REE has begun energization testing of the facility. The record-setting plant has been promoted in cooperation with EcoEnergías.

The Núñez de Balboa project is being developed as a part of the target to install 3GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022, with the focus on Extremadura. Iberdrola is planning to deploy over 2GW of solar energy projects in the community in two years from now. At present, the developer has a photovoltaic pipeline exceeding 1.3GW of total capacity. This includes 6 projects ranging from 50 to 590 megawatts. In addition, the company has access to 300 megawatts of grid capacity for a new photovoltaic venture.

In a decade, the Spanish utility plans to install 10GW of clean energy projects. This is estimated to create about 20 thousand of new jobs. For the moment, Iberdrola has over 4GW of green power capacity being constructed and designed.