Spain Allows TotalEnergies To Develop 3-GW Solar Projects

The route for French energy conglomerate TotalEnergies to develop 3-GW of solar power projects has been smoothened in Spain. As per its announcement, TotalEnergies has obtained from the Spanish authorities (Ministry of Energy Transition and Autonomous Communities) a favourable Environmental Impact Assessment for an estimated 3 GW of installed capacity.

Large-Scale Solar Projects 

This favourable result relates to the 48 solar power plants that TotalEnergies will develop. These will come up in the Madrid region (installed capacity of 1.9 GW), in the Murcia region (more than 350 MW), in Castilla-La Mancha (more than 300 MW), in Andalusia (263 MW), and in Aragon (approximately 150 MW). TotalEnergies said that the first projects will come on stream in early 2024.

These solar power plants will generate about 6,000 GWh of clean energy per year, which will be enough to meet the annual electricity demand of nearly 4 million people. They will also avoid the emission into the atmosphere of close to 50 million tons of CO2 during their lifetime.

TotalEnergies calls these projects socially and environmentally responsible. The firm will promote a series of compensatory measures, including bird marking for behavior monitoring, renting 400 additional hectares for conservation efforts, and utilizing 1.5% of plant production for electricity bill discounts for local residents. It will also provide construction, and Operation & Maintenance training to residents in surrounding municipalities.

“With 2 million residential and business customers in Spain, our Company is firmly committed to promoting the development of renewable energy in the country,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.

He added, “For Spain, the development of these solar farms will make a massive contribution to the country’s energy transition, as they will be able to power the equivalent of the population of the entire community of Madrid. For TotalEnergies, these projects will bring us closer to our goal of 100 GW of gross renewable installed capacity by 2030 worldwide.”

TotalEnergies looks to contribute to the goal of Spain of obtaining 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by mid-century. At the end of 2022, the installed solar power capacity in Spain was over 19GW. In 2022 alone, Spain added 8.3 GW of renewable capacity, of which solar PV accounted for 4.2 GW and wind capacity 1.3 GW.

With regards to TotalEnergies, its gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity at the end of 2022 was 17 GW, and it looks to reach 35 GW of gross production capacity from renewable sources and storage by 2025 and then 100 GW by 2030. The French company wants to become one of the world’s top 5 producers of electricity from wind and solar energy.