Naturgy builds its largest solar project in Spain in Extremadura, with 300 MW and 150 million investment

MADRID, 17 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Naturgy has started the construction of its largest photovoltaic installation in Spain, ‘Campo de Arañuelo’, located in the province of Cáceres (Extremadura), which will have a peak power of 300 megawatts (MW) and in which it will invest more than 150 million of euros, the company reported.

This new energy project, which is expected to come into operation in 2026, will annually produce around 515 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy from renewable sources, an amount equivalent to the electricity consumption of 157,100 homes. Likewise, the installation will contribute to reducing more than 250,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

The group chaired by Francisco Reynés estimated that during the works and operation phase more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs will be created. The works have begun after passing the administrative and environmental development process and once the building licenses have been obtained from the two town councils involved, Aldeacentenera and Torrecillas de la Tiesa.

With this infrastructure, the energy company will add a total of 442 renewable MW in Extremadura. ‘Campo de Arañuelo’ will join the ‘Merengue’ and ‘Merengue II’ wind farms, in Plasencia, and the ‘Miraflores’ photovoltaic plants, in Castuera, and ‘Puerta del Jerte’, also in Plasencia.

Together with ‘Campo de Arañuelo’, Naturgy is building, in the municipality of Badajoz, the photovoltaic plants of ‘El Encinar I’, ‘Los Naipes’ and ‘Los Naipes II’, which have a combined installed power of 150 MW.

The company manages in Extremadura, in different phases of development, construction and operation, a portfolio of nine projects, which total a power of 651 MW, with a global production of more than 1,300 GWh/year, which will mean the generation of equivalent electricity to nearly 400,000 homes.

Naturgy currently has around 6.5 gigawatts (GW) of installed renewable generation capacity in operation – 3.3 GW of wind generation, 2.2 GW of hydroelectric generation and 1 GW of photovoltaic -, and expects to close the year 2024 with around 8 GW of operational installed capacity, to which should be added a pipeline of projects in development of almost 20 GW, mainly in Spain, Australia and the United States.

In the field of renewable gases, Naturgy manages a total of 70 projects in different stages of progress, all of them in Spanish territory and focused on biomethane (60 projects) and hydrogen (10 projects).