Portugal authorizes the construction of the largest photovoltaic project in Europe

Relations between the Portuguese Government and the company Iberdrola continue to grow closer. The company has announced that it already has permission from the Portuguese Environment Agency to build a photovoltaic project with 1,200 megawatts of power, which will make it the largest in Europe and the fifth in the world. Until now, the European title is in the hands of another Iberdrola plant, which came into operation in the summer of 2022 in the province of Cáceres with 590 megawatts of installed power.

The Portuguese plant, which will bear the name of the poet Fernando Pessoa, will be built in Santiago de Cacém, a town on the Alentejo coast located about 160 kilometers from Lisbon. Iberdrola calculates that it will be able to cover the energy demand of 430,000 homes and that it will avoid the annual consumption of 370 million cubic meters of gas. The investment planned for the project is around 700 million euros, almost a quarter of the 3,000 million that the company plans to invest in wind and solar installations in Portugal in the coming years.

The project was originally promoted by the Portuguese-Spanish company Prosolia, which retains a stake in it, according to the weekly Expresso. The area where it will be located is now occupied by eucalyptus trees, which will be replaced by 700,000 photovoltaic modules. The work will employ some 2,500 people in the construction phase, according to the Spanish energy company.

In a statement, the company’s president, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, stressed that the new facility “combines the ambitions of clean energy with the generation of positive and tangible environmental and social impacts.” The company highlighted the complementary measures that will be implemented to mitigate the environmental impact, which include the replacement of eucalyptus trees with native trees, the introduction of beehives or the use of land for sheep farming, as well as professional training actions in the field. of the energy and tourism sector.

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