The company brings together its full management team in Bilbao for its traditional first meeting after the summer
BILBAO, 21 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, underlined in Bilbao the company’s commitment to continue exercising its “tractor effect” of employability and Basque industry and to consolidate its role as the “main engine” of employment and the economy in the Basque Country .
Galán conveyed this message at the meeting, after the summer, of the plenary session of his management team, held, as is traditional in the capital of Biscay, the headquarters of the company, with the return to ordinary work.
The Chairman of Iberdrola remarked in his speech that the company “maintains its commitment to energy autonomy, generating renewable projects”.
In this sense, Galán stressed that the company continues to act as the “main driving company” in the Basque Country, with purchases from 600 Basque suppliers during 2022 for a value of 1,700 million euros and investments that, in the last year, have risen to 241 million euros.
In addition, in accordance with its 2023-2025 Strategic Plan, Galán has meant that Iberdrola “advances steadily” in that objective, which has allowed it to obtain a net profit of 2,521 million euros in the first half of 2023.
President Sánchez Galán also highlighted the more than 2,700 million euros of economic impact generated by Iberdrola’s activity in the Basque Autonomous Community, as well as its tax contribution -of more than 400 million euros-, after contributing more than 2 % of total Basque GDP.
In this sense, it has indicated that only during the past year, Iberdrola made purchases and contracted services from more than 600 Basque suppliers for an amount of more than 1,700 million euros.
Among the main suppliers of Iberdrola in the Basque Country are Ormazabal, SGRE, Ingeteam, Arteche, Mesa, Lizelan. Iberdrola “thus contributes to the structuring of the territory” and to the creation of industrial and innovation opportunities in a growing market, with a high export component.
These collaborations represent an “opportunity to develop a value chain in the regions where it is based” and position the Spanish industry “as an international benchmark”.
As he stated, “Iberdrola’s global growth thus becomes an engine of internationalization for hundreds of Basque companies, which have spent years demonstrating their ability to provide products and services of the highest quality and competitiveness throughout the world.”
In renewable energy, in the Basque Country, in collaboration with EVE, the company has the Aixeindar initiative, which processes wind farms with a capacity of 160 MW in Álava.
Recently, the Labraza and Azaceta wind farms in Álava, with a capacity of 40 MW each, have obtained a positive environmental impact declaration (DIAs) and thus become the first wind farms that will generate 100% green energy to be commissioned. in the Basque Country since 2006.
Additionally, Aixeindar plans to build the first mixed wind and photovoltaic facility in the Basque Country, Laminoria, in the Real Valle de Lamiroria/ Laminoriako Erret Harana, which is awaiting its corresponding DIA. This project consists of a 40 MW wind farm and a 40 MW photovoltaic plant.
These projects planned in the Basque Country will involve more than 470 professionals in peak periods, “contributing to the reactivation of the economy and local employment”. Once operational, the projects will generate clean energy for an equivalent population of more than 107,000 homes and will prevent the emission into the atmosphere of more than 50,000 tons of CO2/year. In Álava, it also has the Ekienea project, a 132 kV photovoltaic plant, with an investment of 70 million euros.
In addition, Iberdrola commissioned the first two wind storage batteries in the country in 2022 at the Oiz (Bizkaia) and Elgea-Urkilla (Araba) wind farms, a pioneering system that will maximize the renewable energy produced.
Within the innovation chapter, Iberdrola inaugurated in October 2021, together with the Bizkaia Provincial Council, its Global Smart Grids Innovation Hub at its headquarters in Larraskitu, a world center for smart grids that already has more than 91 companies, institutions and universities that participate and collaborate technologically from Bilbao.
Likewise, Iberdrola is an investment partner in Basquevolt, a company dedicated to energy storage with solid-state batteries. And it does so by accompanying the Basque Government, CIE Automotive, Enagás, EIT InnoEnergy and CIC energiGUNE.
The project will begin its production of battery cells in 2027, with the goal of reaching 10GWh of capacity. In this way, Basquevolt will turn the Basque Country into a European benchmark in the development of solid state batteries.
This same year, Iberdrola signed a contract worth more than 250 million euros with the leading manufacturer of wind towers, Haizea Wind Group, for the supply of 50 monopiles to the East Anglia Three offshore wind farm in the United Kingdom.
This project is being developed by the British subsidiary of the electricity company, Scottish Power, and the components will leave the Port of Bilbao. In addition, the agreement will mean the creation of some 350 direct jobs.
The company’s president, Ignacio Galán, took advantage of the meeting to congratulate the people of Bilbao on their festivities and send a congratulatory message to the Spanish women’s soccer team, after their success and achievement in the World Cup in Australia.
“In 2016, right here in Bilbao, we decided to sponsor the team, and then we already told them that, just as the Men’s Soccer Team had won the World Cup, we were sure that they would also bring the World Cup to our country.”
Ignacio Sánchez Galán has expressed that “it is a pride to have this Women’s Soccer Team as representatives of this country”, and he wanted to send a message of condolence to the player Olga Carmona on the death of her father.
