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ENVIRONMENT-SPAIN: Activists, Business Join Forces on Solar Energy

Alicia Fraerman

MADRID, Jun 5 2008 (IPS) - An environmental organisation, a private company and an international bank signed an agreement Thursday in the capital of Spain to promote, install, manage and sell power plants fuelled by renewable energy sources.

The first of these will be a photovoltaic power plant using solar energy, with a nominal capacity of 600 kilowatts (kW), which will produce over one million kW-hours per year, supplying enough electricity for 300 homes, Miguel Ángel Hernández, the Ecologists in Action (EEA) representative on the board of the project, told IPS.

This initiative is the first environmental project in Spain to bring together a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and private companies. “It’s another important way, though not the only one, of marking World Environment Day,” celebrated this Thursday, Hernández said.

The environmentalist said that investment in the project will total 4.5 million euros (6.8 million dollars), to be contributed equally by the three parties.

The energy output will be fed into the local electricity grid, and the power company will pay the producers for it, and sell it on to consumers from September this year, when the plant is expected to come onstream.

EEA’s partners in the project are the GEA Group (Generaciones Eléctricas Alternativas) and Triodos Bank, based in the Netherlands with branches in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany.

Hernández said his organisation hopes that this pilot project will be successful, and added that if it is, “it will no doubt be followed by other new projects in which we will participate.”

The money EEA receives for the electricity supplied “will be reinvested in our partnership’s projects and campaigns,” he emphasised.

The three partners have an open door policy for other bodies and NGOs to join new projects, although “at the moment we know of no other NGO that is doing or planning anything similar,” Hernández said.

He added that the partners plan to carry out further joint projects to harness solar energy by means of photovotaic cells, and to enable access and participation by civil society in these projects, as well as developing investment options that are sustainable and socially responsible.

The first project to be undertaken under their agreement is the promotion, construction and operation of the Villa II solar farm, in Villa de Don Fadrique, close to the medieval city of Toledo, some 70 kilometres from Madrid.

As well as contributing to electricity production, this solar farm will reduce pollution by saving emissions of 600 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

Ecologists in Action believes that “society should support sustainable solar energy projects, and Villa II is an example to follow if we want to fight climate change effectively and in a committed manner,” said Hernández.

Announcing the tripartite project on Thursday, Vicente Maqueda, a founding partner of the GEA Group, said that “this agreement is blazing a previously unknown trail in Spain, in which three very different bodies combine their efforts and interests to demonstrate to society at large that it is possible to make profitable investments and be environmentally responsible at the same time.”

The initiative “even changes the ‘typical roles’ ascribed to banks and environmentalists,” he added.

Mikel García-Prieto, director of corporate banking at Triodos Bank, said that “initiatives like this are an example of how it is possible today to invest in sustainable projects and earn a very reasonable rate of return.”

Spain is regarded as a leader in technological innovation for the development of solar power, ever since, after a quarter century of research, the world’s first commercial solar thermoelectric plant was built at Sanlúcar la Mayor, in Seville province in the south.

According to a report published in January by U.S. consultants Emerging Energy Research (EER), the United States and Spain are the indisputable leaders in this emerging technology.

According to the EER report, Spain could have 2,570 megawatts (MW) of installed solar-powered capacity by 2012, only 300 MW less than the capacity predicted for the United States.

The government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero approved a decree in May 2007 setting a premium of 0.25 euro per kW-hour on electricity produced by solar thermoelectric plants.

Spain has what is regarded as the largest solar farm in the world in Milagro, in the province of Navarra, northeast of Madrid.

This farm has 889 solar panels belonging to 753 owners who jointly invested 65 million euros (100 million dollars) in the facility, which covers 51 hectares and produces enough electricity to supply 5,000 homes.

Ecologists in Action is the largest Spanish confederation of environmental associations, with a membership of over 300 NGOs. It advocates solar energy as a necessary replacement for polluting forms of energy generation.

The GEA Group is regarded as a pioneer in promotion, installation and sales of wind farms and solar photovoltaic plants producing energy for electricity grids.

The Triodos Bank is an independent ethical European bank with more than 27 years’ experience, and according to its directors it combines financial profitability with social and environmental responsibility. It specialises in financing sustainable initiatives in the social, cultural and environmental sectors.