Acciona has inaugurated in Majadas de Tiétar (Cáceres) the third solar thermal plant it is commissioning in Spain, an installation of 50 megawatts (MW) of power in which it has invested 237 million euros.
With the start-up of this plant, the group chaired by José Manuel Entrecanales reinforces its solar thermal division, in which the Japanese group Mitsubishi has recently taken a 15% stake.
Acciona already has four solar thermal plants in operation, given that to the three Spanish ones (the two in Extremadura and one in Córdoba) we must add the one it has in the Nevada desert, in the United States. All of them total 214 MW of power, to which 100 MW will be added when the other two that it is currently building in Spain are put into service.
As for this second plant in Extremadura, it has been operational since last November and will produce clean electricity equivalent to the consumption of 30,000 homes. In addition, it has meant the creation of 31 jobs in the plant and more than 350 on average during its construction.
Acciona operates another plant in the region, that of Alvarado (Badajoz), commissioned in 2009, and builds another one, also of 50 MW of power, in the municipality of Orellana, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2012.
The three solar thermal plants that Acciona will have in the Community will produce clean energy equivalent to the consumption of some 90,000 homes in Extremadura annually and will avoid the emission into the atmosphere of some 300,000 tons of CO2 in coal plants and the consumption of fossil fuel equivalent to about 170,000 barrels of oil.
Together, the three facilities represent an investment of approximately 700 million euros, 100 direct jobs in operation and maintenance -apart from indirect and induced- and more than 1,000 jobs in the construction phase, according to the construction, services and energy company.
Acciona Energía also has a biomass plant in Extremadura, in Miajadas, started up at the end of 2010. Adding this installation, the group's green energy assets in the region will generate electricity equivalent to the consumption of about 130,000 homes, around 35% of the community's population.
The opening ceremony of the solar thermal plant was attended by the President of the Board, Guillermo Fernández Vara; the Minister of Industry, José Luis Navarro; the president of Acciona Energía, Carmen Becerril, and its general director, Rafael Mateo.
During the event, Becerril highlighted the need to concentrate efforts on developing renewable energy sources that reduce energy dependence and make them "less vulnerable to the alteration of the price of crude oil", and also contribute to reducing emissions, and to "consolidate a sector of the future around clean energy sources, inexhaustible and progressively efficient." (EUROPA PRESS)
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