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March 27, 2006
Thermal Solar Power Booming in Spain
The Spanish thermal solar power race is on. In Spain, a company called Solucar has a 11 MW solar tower power project under construction, two more 20 MW towers being financed and permitted and 300 MW of parabolic trough plants under development. ACS Cobra has three 50 MW of parabolic trough plants due to start construction soon. In addition Spain's largest utility, Iberdrola, has announced that it has ten parabolic trough trough projects totaling 500 MW underdevelopment. An array of smaller projects brings Spain's total pipeline of solar projects to near 1,000 MW. All this activity results from a 2004 ministerial ruling, Royal Decree 436, which establishes two alternative payment schemes, both guaranteed over the 25 year life-cycle of thermal solar plants, and diminishing thereafter. The first is a fixed, guaranteed payment of 300% of the Average Reference Tariff (ART) for electricity. The second induces operators to compete on the national wholesale electricity market. Here, CSP generation receives 250% of...Posted by dymaxion at March 27, 2006 10:53 PM