PORTUGAL STARTS UP SOLAR POWER PLANT

Acciona Energy Connects $367 Million PV Power Plant in Portugal
December 30, 2008 (Clean Edge News)

“ACCIONA Energy has put into service its photovoltaic power plant in Amareleja (Moura, Portugal). The Company has invested around 261 million euro ($367 million) in the 46 MWp plant. Amareleja is capable of producing 93 million kWh a year equivalent to the electrical consumption of over 30 million Portuguese households and will avoid the 89,383 tons of CO2 emissions a year that would have otherwise been produced by the coal-fired power stations…The plant was constructed in just thirteen months…"

Acciona's Amareleja 46 megawatt installation. (click to enlarge)

“The Amareleja PV plant is 100 percent owned by ACCIONA…the plant covers a total area of 250 hectares, located in the parish of Amareleja in the municipality of Moura, in Portugal's Alentejo region, not far from the border with Spain. It has 2,520 Buskil trackers (ACCIONA in-house technology)…Each tracker has 104 polycrystalline silicon modules with a capacity of 170 and 180 Wp, and the trackers support a total 262,080 PV modules. The trackers follow the sun…

”The first 3 MW were installed at the end of 2007, and were connected provisionally in March 2008. This year has seen the installation of the remainder of the plant's solar field and the construction of the evacuation line, and last week the plant was finally connected to the grid…An average 150 workers worked on the plant's construction, with a peak of almost 500 workers at certain moments.”