Solar energy for southern Europe
Iqony Sens and KGAL building more PV parks on Sicily and in southern Spain
Iqony Sens steps up its cooperation with the prestigious investor KGAL: plans for a solar project in Sicily receive another substantial extension in scope. At the same time, Iqony Sens is developing, planning and building two more solar parks at locations in southern Spain near the cities of Granada and Almeria.
If you were to place all the solar modules installed by Iqony Sens in Italy and Spain in line one after the other, they would form a continuous causeway of modules from Palermo in northern Sicily to Andalusia in southern Spain. A distance of 3,520 kilometres separates the projects, which are being built on behalf of KGAL Investment Management GmbH & Co. KG. The major project on Sicily was initially intended to have a total output of 440 megawatts. A little more than 250 MWp is now to be added to the not inconsiderable original capacity. The extension to the contract was approved by the project’s investor KGAL and will raise the solar park’s installed capacity to almost 700 MWp.
Extended Sicilian project will save half a million tonnes of CO2 annually
“The capacity is about the equivalent of a large conventional power plant. The PV system will feed more than 1,400 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year into the grid,” says Iqony Sens Managing Director André Kremer. Iqony Sens, or to be more precise its Italian subsidiary SENS Italia, acts as project developer, EPC and service provider on this project on behalf of KGAL. The project reinforces Iqony Sens’ position in the Italian PV business, which has long been an important sales market for the PV expert with its headquarters in Würzburg (Lower Franconia). “Working with KGAL is an absolute pleasure in all respects. Pragmatic, quick and solution oriented – that suits us fine,” says Kremer.
Planning and preparation are already well underway, with the start of construction of the first section scheduled for Q3 2021. Whether it is earthworks, supplies, modules or inverters: everything about this project is huge. The same applies to CO2 emissions savings: the plant will save a gigantic 560,000 tonnes of the harmful greenhouse gas. This saving is almost enough to compensate for the average amount of CO2 emitted annually by all the take-offs and landings at Munich Airport.
Self-declared goals within reach
The new project in Spain represents a further step in the direction of the Iqony Sens goal of 500 MW of installed capacity on the Spanish photovoltaic market. “Based on the excellent progress of recent months, we will reach this figure earlier than expected and be in the happy position of setting another, much higher goal,” says André Kremer concerning the ambitious future plans of the company, and adds “We will probably exceed the 2 GWp mark by 2023.”
Picture: Juan Pedro Martinez