EDP to build largest solar park in Europe in Alentejo

The Portuguese energy giant EDP is to invest around €115 million in the country’s Alentejo region to build what will become the largest solar park in Europe.

The Sobreira photovoltaic plant, which involves an investment of around €115 million, will see the installation of 348,000 photovoltaic modules in a fenced area covering 445 hectares on land of the Estates of Sobreira de Baixo and Quinta de Dona Maria.

It will be a hybrid project, since it will inject its electricity into the network through a connection point to the 400 kV Alqueva II hydroelectric plant, permitting solar energy to be fed in during the day, while taking advantage of water stored in a reservoir to produce electricity at night.

Once assembled, the park will have an installed power of 242 MWp (292 MVA) and an average annual electricity production of 418 GW/h.

The solar park, according to Jornal Económico, will cover land in the districts of Portel (Évora) and Vidigueira (Beja) and will be developed by EDP Renováveis over a construction period of 16 months with a useful life of 35 years.

It will also be the largest solar park in Portugal, even larger than the Solara 4 solar park in the Algarve which generates 380,000MWh electricity and supplies enough clean energy to power 200,000 households, offsetting 177,000t of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) a year.