Repsol has started construction of a 264MW photovoltaic project in Badajoz, in Spain.
The Valdesolar facility, which is Repsol’s largest solar installation to date, will start generating electricity for the grid in late 2020.
The €200m project will employ between 300 and 500 people during the construction period and will cover an area equivalent to nearly a thousand football pitches.
Construction work will conclude in the early months of 2021.
All of the PV plant’s five major zones are located in Valdecaballeros.
The solar plant, which will be made up of 648,000 PV modules, will be connected to the grid by a new electrical substation.
Repsol Electricidad y Gas will operate the plant which will will produce an estimated 514,490 megawatt-hours annually.
Valdesolar is one of seven renewables projects Repsol is developing on the Iberian peninsula and the company’s third to break ground in Spain.
The first was the 335MW Delta wind project, located in the provinces of Zaragoza and Teruel, which will host 89 turbines.
Construction began in December of last year and the wind farm is expected to begin operation at the end of this year.
The second was the 126MW Kappa solar plant in Manzanares, in Ciudad Real.
Construction began in April.
Together, Valdesolar, Delta and Kappa represent a total investment of €600m and a combined capacity of 2GW.
In 2019 Repsol obtained the maximum certification, “A label”, from Spain’s National Commission on Markets and Competition for the environmentally friendly origin of the electricity it sells, which is 93.5% renewable, with guarantees of origin, and 6.5% low emissions.
Repsol has raised its target for low-carbon electricity generation capacity by 3GW to 7.5GW by 2025, and is starting to expand into other markets to invest in renewable energy.