Iberdrola Renovables acquired two wind power plants in Catalonia

Both plants, which have combined installed capacity of 50 megawatts, are situated in Tarragona province and were built by Gamesa, which installed 25 G90 wind turbines, each of which is 100 metros high and has unit capacity of 2 MW.

The Conesa II wind farm is in the municipalities of Conesa y Forés and has installed capacity of 32 MW while the Savallá facility is situated in Savallà del Comtat and has installed capacity of 18 MW.

The deal furtherconsolidates Iberdrola Renovables’ leadership in the development of clean energy in Spain. The company is also aiming to become a key player in the development of renewable energy in Catalonia over the coming years.

To this end, it is involved in a number of major projects in the region, especially in the sphere of R+D.

Since 2009 the company has been working with IREC (the Catalonian Energy Research Institute) on the development of a test platform – the Zefir Test Station Project – in a bid to advance research on the specific characteristics of this form of wind energy.

The company is also pursuing a key initiative with the Barcelona-based BSC (National Supercomputing Centre) aimed at improving the layout of onshore wind farms with high turbine density, those installed on physically challenging sites and large-scale offshore wind farms.

The leading player in Spain

Iberdrola Renovables is the leading developer of renewable energy in Spain, with installed capacity of 5,840 MW at the end of June 2011.

The company has 5,446 MW of wind energy, 342 MW of small-scale hydroelectric plants, 50 MW at its solar thermal electric plant in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), and 2 MW at its first forest biomass power plant in Corduente (Guadalajara).

One of the main factors that make the projects undertaken by Iberdrola Renovables stand out is the promotion of local job creation. Ninety per cent of the people operating the company’s wind farms in Spain (where the headcount has jumped from 50 to close to 800) come from the towns where the facilities have been developed, while almost half of the jobs generated in Spain have been created in rural areas.

It is worth noting that the company’s business operations have generated over 15,000 indirect jobs nationwide. Furthermore, since 2001 more than 3,000 companies, most of which are local, have collaborated with Iberdrola Renovables in Spain.

With operations in 23 countries, Iberdrola Renovables is the world leader in its sector by both installed capacity (with with around 13,000 MW) and output (7,636 million kilowatt hours generated in the first three months of the current year).

www.iberdrolarenovables.es/