Naturgy, a company chaired by Francisco Reynés, has begun the construction of its largest photovoltaic plant in Spain, called Campo de Arañuelo, located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura. This installation, with a peak capacity of 300 MW, will generate approximately 515 GWh per year of renewable energy, enough to supply the electricity consumption of 157,100 homes. In addition, it will reduce more than 250,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
The total investment in this plant will exceed 150 million euros and will cover an area of 290 hectares. It is expected that more than a thousand direct and indirect jobs will be generated during the construction and operation phases. The works have begun after completing the necessary administrative and environmental procedures and obtaining construction licenses from the town councils of Aldeacentenera and Torrecillas de la Tiesa. The plant is expected to come into operation in 2026.
With this infrastructure, Naturgy will add a total of 442 renewable MW in Extremadura. Campo de Arañuelo will join the Merengue and Merengue II wind farms, in Plasencia, and the Miraflores photovoltaic plants, in Castuera, and Puerta del Jerte, also in Plasencia. Together with Campo de Arañuelo, the Group is building, in the municipality of Badajoz, the El Encinar I, Los Naipes and Los Naipes II photovoltaic plants, which have a combined installed power of 150 MW.
Naturgy manages in Extremadura, in different phases of development, construction and operation, a portfolio of nine projects, which total a power of 651 MW, with a global production of more than 1,300 GWh/year, which will mean the generation of electricity equivalent to nearly 400,000 homes.
Commitment to the energy transition
The company led by Francisco Reynés, has assumed the commitment to be one of the key actors in the energy transition towards a circular and decarbonized economy model. The group allocated 90% of the investment carried out in 2023 to energy transition projects, with 1,730 million focused on the generation of renewable energy and more than 900 million on distribution networks.
Naturgy currently has around 6.5 GW of installed renewable generation capacity in operation (3.3 GW of wind generation, 2.2 GW of hydroelectric generation and 1 GW of photovoltaic), and expects to end the year 2024 with around 8 GW of operational installed capacity, to which should be added a pipeline of projects in development of almost 20 GW, mainly in Spain, Australia and the US.
In the field of renewable gases, Naturgy manages a total of 70 projects in different stages of progress, all of them in Spanish territory and focused on biomethane (60 projects) and hydrogen (10 projects). Naturgy wants to lead in our country the opportunity that biomethane represents as a vector of the energy transition.
2024-05-17 11:25:06
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