Chinese company plans to install 2.1 million solar panels in Alentejo

Yet another major solar undertaking in the Alentejo has been trailed by Negocios online, which informs that Chinese company Chint Solar “wants to develop a complex in Alentejo with more than 2.1 million solar panels, nearly 900 MW of battery storage, and an estimated annual electricity production of around 1,900 gigawatt-hours.

“It is one of the largest renewable energy projects currently being prepared in Portugal,” says the online – leaving it up to readers to try and tot up exactly how many large renewable energy projects are already being prepared, not only ‘in Portugal’ but more specifically in the Alentejo.

The news comes as it is now crystal clear that there is a great deal of ‘push-back’ against the government’s ‘Green Map’ – a list of over 1,300 areas where renewables projects are to be given ‘fast tracked’ licences and approvals. Communities, municipalities, individuals receiving information through their social media feeds are all ‘throwing up their hands’ in proverbial horror – the often-repeated observations being: “You cannot eat solar panels…”

In Castelo Branco, where Danish company Eurowind is pushing hard for two large-scale renewable energy projects in the municipality, at an investment of €1.2 billion, mayor Leopoldo Rodrigues is still saying “absolutely not”. He told Diariodigital this week: “I was very clear about the conditions that the municipal council will not waive: the non-use of agricultural land, the non-use of protected areas, and installation in zones that would have a strong impact on the landscape. I was convinced that they had understood” – but it appears they are still trying…

All this, as the Green Map is under public consultation, municipalities have already shown they don’t like it, and people’s response is overwhelmingly negative.

This new Chinese project, known as the Alqueva-Portel Cluster, located in the municipalities of Portel and Vidigueira comprises five separate projects, according to Negócios – only three of which are included in the scope definition proposal submitted for environmental assessment: the São Gião Hybrid Project, the Tapada Branca Hybrid Project, and the Monte Santos Photovoltaic Solar Plant.

A source for Chint Solar told Negocios that these “effectively refer to five projects that make up the Alqueva-Portel cluster, the three mentioned and two others for which we will submit the PDA* very soon.”

Overall, the complex is expected to have installed solar capacity of 1,256.2 megawatt-peak, energy storage systems with a total capacity of 895 MW, and estimated average annual production of 1,867.9 GWh.

According to Negocios, the complex will include approximately 2.17 million photovoltaic panels rated at 580 watt-peak each, spread across a total area of about 2,616 hectares –  corresponding to roughly 585 hectares of usable area occupied by the panels.

The electricity generated will be fed into the Public Electricity Network through a new high-voltage switching substation to be built in the municipality of Portel.

As for the total investment, Chint declined to disclose the figure to Negócios. “Given some uncertainty regarding the final form the project may take as a result of the licensing process, we do not wish at this stage to indicate an estimated value,” the company said.

However, Chint’s source said it expects to invest around €13.5 million by the completion of the licensing process, and to bear approximately €122 million in costs related to the development of grid-connection infrastructure.

In explaining its choice of Alentejo, Chint cited “the availability of large properties, proximity to the Alqueva dam, electricity grid capacity, interconnections with Spain, and high levels of solar radiation.”

“The Alqueva area was deliberately chosen by us for the development of this cluster because we believe in the strategic role and enormous competitiveness that this region may have in the future of energy generation within our country’s electricity system,” the Chint source told Negocios.

What will be interesting now is to see how the licensing process fares, given that public reaction to the number of solar panels – either covering, or programmed to cover, vast tracts of Nature – will soon be impossible to ignore.

*PDA are the initials commonly used for ‘scope definition proposal’ – a fundamental preliminary document in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, used to identify environmental factors and the most significant impacts that must be studied in a project before its approval.

Source: Alentejo Ilustrado/ Diariodigitalcastelobranco/ Negocios online/