Torresol Energy, a joint venture between Masdar and Sener, a leading international engineering company, has secured $760 million loans for the construction of its two solar plants in Spain.

The total investment value for the two plants, Valle 1 and Valle 2 is $1 billion.

Work on the two 50 MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants began in March 2009 and is the first time that twin thermo solar plants have been built simultaneously. Both plants incorporate energy solutions developed by Sener, including molten salt thermal storage capacity of up to 7.5 hours. This means that the state-of-the-art plants will be capable of generating electricity at night and through periods of poor sunlight, enabling a continuous supply of electricity and overcoming intermittency, one of the drawbacks of some renewable technologies.

Valle 1 and 2, together with the Gemasolar Central Tower Plant (17MW / 110GWh per year), which was project financed in November 2008 and continues to progress construction as expected, represents a total investment by Torresol Energy of $1.4 billion across 3 CSP projects over the past 12 months.

“With a combined production of 340 GWh per annum, which equates to the clean and safe energy for over 80,000 homes and a saving of 90,000 tons of CO2 emissions every year, Valle 1 and 2 will be leaders in the delivery of concentrated solar power and a major contribution to the region’s power supply,” stated Enrique Sendagorta, chairman of Torresol Energy.
 
“The CSP projects currently under construction in Spain will introduce and test new technologies, which will help promote CSP as an economically competitive and viable alternative to traditional power sources,” added Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO, Masdar.

“Through Torresol Energy, we are actively promoting the development and operation of large-scale CSP plants throughout the world and hope to implement additional projects across Southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Southwest United States.”-TradeArabia News Service