Iberdrola Renovables commissions Europe’s second-largest wind farm in Granada, Spain
Iberdrola Renewables ended 2007 with 7,704 MW of operational capacity, and projects for another 42,000 MW, consolidating its world leadership position*. The company invested more than €250 million in the El Marquesado facility in Granada province, Andalusia’s largest wind farm with a capacity of 198 MW. Chairman Ignacio Galán announced new investments of €1 billion in Andalusia through 2010. Annual output can supply more than 100,000 households with electricity –or the entire city of Granada.
Chairman Ignacio Galán of IBERDROLA RENEWABLES today officially opened the El Marquesado wind farm complex in Spain’s Granada province. This complex is the largest to be built in the Andalusian region, and is the second largest in Europe, its capacity exceeded only by the IBERDROLA RENEWABLES’ installations in Maranchón, in the central Spanish province of Guadalajara.
The opening ceremonies were attended by Francisco Vallejo, who heads the Andalusian regional government’s Innovation, Science, and Enterprise; IBERDROLA RENEWABLES’ CEO Xabier Viteri, and the mayors of the towns of Huéneja, Dólar, Ferreira and La Calahorra.
The 198 MW wind farm complex cost some €250 million euros to build, and its annual output is expected to reach some 450,000 megawatt hours (MWh), enough to supply more than 100,000 households or the entire city of Granada. Produced conventionally, the same amount of energy would cause annual emissions of 400,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, which it would take some 36 million trees to absorb.
Completed in 2007, the El Marquesado complex encompasses four wind farms, each with a capacity of 49.5 MW: Dólar 1, in Dólar and Huéneja; Dólar 3, in Dólar and Ferreira; Huéneja 3, in Huéneja, and Ferreira 2, in La Calahorra and Ferreira. Deployed on the four sites are 100 late-model Gamesa 2 MW wind turbines.
In his remarks, Galán underlined the Iberdrola Group’s commitment to the Andalusian region. “ IBERDROLA, a private company with more than 106 years of history, Spain’s largest power company, ranked third in the IBEX market index, and among the four largest electrical utilities in the world, having devised and implemented a strategy that enabled it to multiply its value five-fold in the past six years, feels that Andalusia is an essential component of the present we share and of the future that we want to build together,” Galán said.
€1 billion in new Investments
Galán noted that in the past five year IBERDROLA had poured €2 billion into the Andalusian region, and disclosed that the group plans to invest an additional €1 billion there under its strategic plan for the 2008-2010 period, chiefly in renewables. “In the next three years we will make purchases worth some €450 million in the region,” he said, “working alongside Andalusian industry and doing our bit to revitalise the region’s economy.”
He noted that either directly or through mutual funds, Andalusian investors owned more than €3 billion worth of IBERDROLA stock.
Numerous local contractors and about 1,000 local workers were hired to build the El Marquesado installations, which will provide permanent employment for about 40 people. The evacuation of the energy generated will be carried out by a substation located inside the complex, which boasts one of the largest transformers ever used for wind energy.
IBERDROLA RENEWABLES operates 13 wind farms in Andalusia, eight of them in the province of Cádiz, four in Granada and one in Almería. Together they have a capacity of nearly 400 MW.
Total wind power capacity in the region grew by 112% in 2007, reaching 1,299 MW, which lifted Andalusia to fifth place in wind power among Spain’s 19 regions. With another 183 MW to come on stream in the next few months, the region will soon boast a total capacity of almost 1,500 MW connected to the grid.
World Leader in Wind Power Capacity
At the close of 2007, IBERDROLA RENEWABLES had reached a total generation capacity of 7,704 MW, a 74% increase for the year. Of the total, wind power accounted for 7,362 MW, and mini-hydro plants for the remaining 342 MW.
The company, which last year consolidated its global world leadership position in wind power, has a total renewable capacity in Spain of 4,570 MW, with wind power capacity accounting for 4,228 MW.
In the same year IBERDROLA’s renewables unit boosted its capacity outside Spain seven-fold, from 440 MW to 3,134 MW. Of this total, plants in the United States account for 2,145 MW**, thanks mainly to the acquisition last spring of ScottishPower and its U.S. affiliate PPM Energy. The takeover also added 382 MW of capacity in the United Kingdom.
The remaining 607 MW of capacity is scattered throughout Europe, with 217 MW in Greece, 125 MW n France, 105 MW in Poland, 60 MW in Germany, and 50 MW in Portugal.
IBERDROLA RENEWABLES project pipeline at the close of 2007 totalled more than 42,000 MW in new renewables capacity, which was 2.3 times the 18,431 MW total of a year earlier, and constitutes an excellent future growth platform.
More than half the projected wind power capacity –21,991 MW- is to be built in the United States. Projects in Spain represent 17% of the total, including 6,397 MW in wind power and 809 MW in other renewables, such as biomass and solar power. Projects in the United Kingdom will add 5,412 MW of wind power, or 13% of the total. The remaining 18%, made up of 7,346 MW in wind power and 98 MW in other renewables, is dispersed in numerous countries.
Under IBERDROLA’s 2008-2010 strategic plan, it intends to invest €8.6 billion to add 2,000 MW of renewables plant each year, reaching a total installed capacity of 13,600 MW at the end of this period.
Meanwhile, 2007 saw the company’s renewable energy production expand by 87% to 14,708 million kWh***. Wind power accounted for 12,545 million kWh, mini-hydro plants for 541 million kWh, and other technologies, chiefly solar, for 300,000 kWh.
* Source: New Energy Finance (May, 2007)
** Includes 606 MW belonging to a third party under an energy sales contract
*** Includes 1,621 million kWh produced by the 606 MW belonging to a third party under an energy sales contract, and pro forma data.
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