Ribera approves a 300 MW solar plant in Extremadura for Iberdrola

Iberdrola is preparing to install a 294 MW plant in Extremadura. The electricity company has just received a positive resolution from the Directorate General for Energy Policy and Mines, granting Iberenova Promociones the prior administrative authorization and administrative construction authorization for the Cedillo facility and its evacuation infrastructures in Cedillo and Herrera de Alcántara (Cáceres).

The company, which already has a 100 MW plant in operation in the area, has undertaken a complex solution to distribute the energy produced by these plants and the almost 500 MW hydroelectric power plant also located in the municipality to guarantee the minimum impact on the environment of the Alto Tajo Natural Park, a protected area between Spain and Portugal.

To achieve this, Iberdrola has installed a 300 kV encapsulated substation. Before being assembled on site, this installation undertook a complex journey by ship from Venice to Seville along the waters of the Guadalquivir and, from there, it traveled through Andalusia and Extremadura by truck.

The substation was inserted in containers placed on a six-meter deep structure, through which the cables that distribute the energy to the grid are connected. Each of these containers weighs more than 50 tons, and large overhead cranes were needed to place them without interfering with the four evacuation lines of the hydroelectric power plant.

Extremadura has 3,867 MW of green energy, almost half of which is photovoltaic.

This innovative infrastructure will serve the 300 MW photovoltaic plant. This facility - backed by the town council and the Cedillo Agrarian Society - has just completed the processing phase before the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. In this way, the installation of more evacuation networks is avoided, which favors the reduction of the environmental impact and the integration in the territory.

The electricity company already has twenty renewable facilities operating in Extremadura, where it currently has an installed green power of 3,867 MW, 47% of which corresponds to the 12 solar plants that the company has in operation in the region.

Panel plant

The power company has also embarked on the installation of a photovoltaic solar panel production plant with a capacity of 1.6 GW, equivalent to some three million panels.

The company expects to receive aid from the Innovation Fund to be able to move forward with the second project of this type, together with the one announced with Exiom in Asturias.

The new plant would have the capacity to generate around 500 jobs and would help close the company's value chain in the area.