Masdar announces solar project launch in Spain

Masdar has launched a solar power project in southern Spain. Photo: Getty, for illustrative purposes only.

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Masdar has announced that it will be launching a solar plant project in Seville, as part of its $1.41bn investment into Spanish power production, the company’s director said on Wednesday.

Torresol Energy, a 40:60 partnership between Masdar and Spanish engineering company Sener, will built two 50 megawatt solar parks at the plant.

In addition, the plant will have ‘thousands’ of mirrors concentrating the captured energy on a single tower that holds molten salt, which is believed to be so effective at retaining heat, it will be able to produce power 24 hours a day, from March to October.

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“We’re basically decoupling the solar [input] from the electricity generation,” said Frank Wouters, director of Masdar Power, in an interview carried by UAE newspaper The National.

The salt tower is believed to be the first phase of Masdar’s investment in Spain. The Spanish Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving, the country’s renewable-energy agency, added that it welcomed the development and hoped for further investment by Abu Dhabi into Spain’s renewable energy sector.

“We are expecting more than $84bn will be needed in order to develop the amount of renewable technologies we are looking for,” Isidoro Tapia Ramirez, the agency’s general secretary, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

“Once they know the Spanish market and how the Spanish demands develop and how friendly we are to the development of the renewable sector, I’m sure they will find new projects to develop.”

Originally, three solar plants were planned for the project in southern Spain, during a period when solar energy producers benefited from government subsidies. However, in December of 2010, the Spanish government cut back the payments in light of the country’s crippling economic crisis. Despite this, Masdar said that its plants remain commercially viable.

“The projects that we have embarked upon were very solid,” Wouters said, “Even with the crisis, there was still demand for power. There were still requests to modernise the power base. The three plants that we have there are rock solid, so nothing has affected us there in that sense,” he was quoted as saying in The National.

“All our projects are commercial. Whether they are here or abroad, they are commercial,” he added.

The solar tower project is estimated to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tonnes a year. Some 25,000 homes are expected to receive power from the plant, which is backed by $241.3bn worth of financing from European banks.

Since its inception, Masdar has been heavily involved in moving Abu Dhabi towards a low-carbon economy. With more than $5bn worth of renewable-energy projects underway across the globe, the company is regarded as a leader in the energy-efficiency field.

Earlier this month, the Royal Institute of British Architects announced that it had awarded a Masdar building one of its prestigious awards for architectural excellence.

Built by Foster + Partners, the futuristic Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi was one of 13 buildings awarded the RIBA International Award. The awards are presented to architecture practices based outside the UK, building anywhere outside the UK. Practices based in Britain, but working outside the European Union, are also eligible.

All of the award winners are also eligible for the RIBA Lubetkin prize, which will be announced in October of this year.