Iberdrola, Spain’s leading electric utility company aims to construct the largest hydroelectric power plant in Western Europe.
As per company’s statement, the project will commence from next year on Conso II, a pumped storage power plant, or Giga battery, in the Sil basin in Ourense in the country’s northwestern region of Galicia. The company has lately initiated the releasing of the details of the project, reports Xinhua news agency.
Cristian Fabrega, Coordinator of the Master in Renewable Energies and Energy Sustainability at the University of Barcelona, informed Xinhua on Wednesday that, “This type of project makes a lot of sense as a transition to achieving other alternatives that we don’t have yet, it’s worth doing, in fact, many countries base their electricity grid on hydraulic energy and hydraulic storage.”
The plant will connect the high-altitude Cenza reservoir with the lower-altitude Bao reservoir, taking the benefit of the distinction in altitude of 690 meters to produce and reserve energy.
It will take six years to conclude the construction project, says Iberdrola, thereby investing 1.5 billion euros ($1.58 billion) in the new infrastructure to generate 100 per cent renewable energy.
According to Fabrega, such investments are frequent as progressively more energy companies are advancing large renewable energy projects “because they’ve seen they have to diversify their business and cannot simply rely on oil or gas”.
The Conso II plant will utilise leftover solar energy generated during the day in order to pump water between the reservoirs, where it will be cumulated until required to generate power by transmitting it through turbines.
The company reported in a statement that, “This will be an infrastructure that will not require new reservoirs or deposits, as it will use existing ones,” further stating that its performance “will be a 100 per cent clean process”.
As per Iberdrola‘s approximation, the plant’s capacity will produce 4,000 GWh per year, which is almost twice the production by any nuclear power station in Spain.
The company further stated that the new plant is formulated to supply a reserve of 58 million kWh of storable energy, which is parallel to the average daily consumption of 10 million users.
