Madrid, 2nd March– GRS has successfully started construction of the Carmonita Norte project in Badajoz, a 122 MW capacity project for Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV). This is the fourth major project signed in Spain by the Gransolar company, which is facing a period of extensive growth after establishing itself as the leading solar EPC company in Australia and with its focus on the energy transition in Europe.
The Carmonita Norte project, a cluster consisting of three photovoltaic plants, will take advantage of the favorable conditions of Extremadura as a privileged area for producing clean energy thanks to its climatic and orographic characteristics. The region has become a privileged location, where a third of the total installed solar power capacity in all of Spain was commissioned in 2022.
The three plants that make up Carmonita Norte will have a common interconnection infrastructure and an elevator substation, as well as a 220 kV high voltage line distributed over 6.7 kilometers. They will total more than 185,000 large bifacial solar panels spread over an area of more than 260 hectares.
GRS will also be responsible for the EPC of the collector infrastructure, consisting of a 220 to 400 KV elevator substation plus its line, which will serve as the last connection point for the Carmonita Norte, Carmonita Oeste and Carmonita Sur clusters, with a total transformer capacity of close to 1GW.
The pile-driving works of the structures that will support the modules and solar trackers supplied by PV Hardware have begun almost a month ahead of schedule. The plant is expected to be fully operational in the second half of 2023.
GRS is very pleased about this project, which represents its return to Spain after becoming the leading EPC in Australia and taking on major challenges in other markets. Carmonita will be one of the company’s major projects in 2023 and its fourth largest PV plant in Spain after El Bailadero (10.46 MWdc), Desafío Solar (49.90 MWdc) and Las Naranjillas (49.94 MWdc).
Fernando Salinas, Managing Director of FRV Iberia, commented on the project: “The construction of Carmonita Norte is great news for FRV, which continues to expand its clean energy portfolio in Spain and, thus, consolidating its role as a leading renewable energy company, as well as for Extremadura, which has a series of excellent conditions to host projects that allow clean energy to continue to grow, with the positive impact that this has both environmentally and on the local community, generating wealth and employment in the region.”
GRS, for its part, has also expressed its optimism about this new project. “A few months of hard work and interesting challenges await us, but also of reaping the rewards of the capabilities we have demonstrated to complete large projects and that have allowed us to meet the needs of our customers,” explains GRS COO Jordi Vega. “In this sense, we are grateful for the opportunity of FRV to collaborate again in the creation of a large photovoltaic project that will contribute to making the step to clean energies.”
