The Danish multinational Eurowind Energy, which inaugurated this Tuesday the second solar park in the country for the production of electricity, wants to invest more than 400 million euros (ME) in Portugal by the end of this decade, as announced on Tuesday.
Pedro Pereira, the company’s director for Southern Europe, told reporters that, “by the end of this decade, [serão investidos] 400 ME” in the construction of small production photovoltaic parks in Covilhã, Castelo Branco, Mafra, Vouzela and Bragança, with a total installed power of 50 megawatts (MW).
Half will come into operation soon and the other half at the end of this first semester to come into operation next year,” he added.
The Danish company also has three other projects planned for Castelo Branco, two wind and solar farms and a green hydrogen project.
“We aim to hybridize our projects with solar and wind energyadding technology to store energy when it is not being produced”, he explained.
The official warned of various difficulties faced by the renewable energy sector in Portugal and that are related to the delay in the issuance of opinions and licenses, legislative inconsistencies, lack of human resources” in various organizations such as the General Directorate of Energy and Geology and undersizing of the National Electric System due to insufficiency and incapacity of the electrical injection points.
There is a great delay in the dispatch of processes, which explains why, to reach the exploration of a park, it will take six years, which takes away the investment,” he said, referring to the Triana Solar Park, inaugurated this Tuesday in the municipality of Alenquer, in the Lisbon district.
However, he recognized the government’s efforts to simplify things to comply with the green agenda.
At the inauguration of the investment of 18 million euros, the company’s CEO, Jens Rasmussen, stated that they are “committed to building more parks in the country“.
The park has an installed capacity of 22 MW, divided into 41,000 photovoltaic modules on 30 hectares.
The promoters estimate a production of 41.5 gigawatts per year, capable of provide electricity to more than 14,000 families.
At the inauguration, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate, Ana Fontoura Gouveia, said that 57% of the electricity produced in Portugal already comes from renewable sources and the goal is to increase to 80% by 2026.
The country already has an installed capacity of 2.5 GW and the goal is to increase from 1 to 1.2 GW this year.
To simplify licensing processes, the ‘Simplex Environmental’ program was launched.
Source: Observadora
