Seville Will Be World-Wide Leader In Solar Energy In 2013

Siracusa and the province of Seville already have a point in common: they are places where the man can use the sun in his own benefit. Three millennia ago, the wise Archimedes set fire to the Roman fleet that tried to invade the Greek colony using mirrors to reflect the light of the sun in the candles of the ships. And in 2013, the multinational Andalusian Abengoa Solar, filial of Abengoa, will turn to the province into the world-wide leader of solar energy production, thanks to two plants that will be able to supply to 200,000 homes, avoiding therefore the emission of 360,000 tons of dioxide of carbon to the year.

“Only California will surpass Seville in solar production, and it is not comparable because it is as great as a country and it has more than 40 million inhabitants”, the president of Abengoa, Santiago Seage, assured yesterday.

If their prognoses are fulfilled, the multinational will produce in the province 400 megawatts thanks to the investment of 1,800 million Euros, an amount that will have its repercussion in the accounts of the branch, that still will suffer losses in 2007, according to Seage. He added that the expansion is financing with own resources and a bank loan.

Most of the money, about 1,200 million, will be destined to Solúcar, the solar orchard that the Major is constructing in Sanlúcar, whose first stage, of 11 megawatt, was connected to the network earlier this year.

Seage explained that this plant will be able to generate up to 300 megawatt once they conclude works in 2013, although until the moment they are only in execution three phases with a total capacity of 120 megawatt.

The other power station will be located in Écija, well-known indeed like the city of the sun or the frying pan of Andalusia. It will consist of two plants with a total capacity of 100 megawatt and one investment of 600 million Euros. “We are in the hope of securing the permissions, and want to begin works at the end of 2008”, indicated the president of Solar Abengoa.

The election of the province of Seville not only responds to criteria of geographic proximity, but to their technical suitability. “The valley of the Guadalquivir has more than 2,000 hours of light to the year, and unlike Almeria, where there is more radiation, the land is better because he is flat”, it indicated Santiago Seage.

But everything is not a way of roses in the footpath of the solar energy. Still superior to the one of the electricity generated by fossil fuels faces a final cost, although it benefits from a legal norm that prioritizes the production up to 500 megavatios in the case of the technology of termosolar, which is the one employed by Abengoa. “There are reasonable prime although we hoped that the Government extends east limit”, he affirmed the president of Solar Abengoa, that affected which the cost is similar to the one of a traditional power station “if the expenses consider to palliate the carbon dioxide emissions”.

Another field that Solar Abengoa is exploring is the conjunction of solar orchards with the traditional technology of turbines of combined cycle that work with natural gas. “We have two projects, one in Morocco and another one in Algeria that will be first of the world”, Seage declared, that it affected which “the solar energy already is a reality”. Eureka! then, although the sun no longer serves to set afire the Roman ships.

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