TotalEnergies: Green light to develop 48 solar power plants in Spain

TotalEnergies announced on Monday, five days before its annual general meeting, that it had received environmental approvals to develop 48 solar power plants in Spain, with a total capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW), which would supply electricity to nearly 4 million people.

These green lights from the Spanish Ministry of Energy Transition and the Autonomous Communities concern 48 power plants that TotalEnergies will develop in the community of Madrid (representing installed capacity of 1.9 gigawatts), in the region of Murcia (more than 350 megawatts), in Castilla-La Mancha (more than 300 MW), in Andalusia (263 MW), and in Aragon (approximately 150 MW). The first projects will start in early 2024, the release said.

By comparison, TotalEnergies had 11.7 GW of gross installed solar capacity at the end of 2022, including 1 GW in Europe. These solar farms will generate “about 6,000 gigawatt hours of clean energy per year, enough to cover the electricity demand of nearly 4 million people,” the oil company said.

TotalEnergies will deploy “a series of compensation measures” such as tagging birds to “observe their behavior,” leasing an additional 400 hectares “for conservation actions,” and allocating 1.5% of the plants’ output “for rebates on local residents’ electricity bills, while offering training in construction and operation & maintenance to residents of the neighboring communities. “For Spain, the development of these solar farms will make a massive contribution to the country’s energy transition because they will be able to power the equivalent of the population of the entire community of Madrid,” commented Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies.

These projects will bring TotalEnergies closer to its “ambition to reach 100 GW of gross installed renewable power generation capacity worldwide by 2030,” the same source added. At the general meeting on Friday, shareholders will vote on the group’s climate policy.