Grupo Cobra and Torresol Energy Begin Commercial Operation of Solar Plants in Spain

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Latin America (Cordoba, Argentina)--Spanish companies Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios SA (Madrid, Spain) and Torresol Energy (Vizcaya, Spain) have recently begun commercial operations of the Manchasol I and Gemasolar solar power plants.

Manchasol I, which belongs to the Cobra Group, is a 49.9-megawatt (MW) parabolic-trough collector power plant, located near Alcazar de San Juan, in Castilla la Mancha. The facility comprises 624 solar field collectors in a total area of 51 hectares, forming four parallel loops of 156 collectors connected in series. The 433 million dollar plant has a thermal energy storage capacity of 7.5 hours and will supply 161 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per year of renewable electricity, enough to supply electrical energy for 45,000 people.

Gemasolar is located in Fuentes de Andalucia, in Sevilla, and is the first commercial-scale plant in the world to apply central tower receiver and molten-salt heat-storage technology. The surplus heat accumulated during daylight hours is stored in the molten-salt tank, which generates steam that produces electrical power. The facility, which is owned by Torresol Energy, is equipped with 2,650 heliostats in a 185-hectare solar field and will produce 110 GWh per year. Its technology also permits independent electrical generation for up to 15 hours without any solar feed. The plant will supply 19.9 megawatts (MW) of clean and safe electricity to 25,000 homes and reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year.

Grupo Cobra is a Spanish company founded in 1944 that develops services and maintenance support applied to railways, telecommunications, industrial systems, energy distribution and energy projects.

Torresol Energy is a joint venture between Sener Aeronáutica (Madrid, Spain) and Masdar Initiative (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates). It develops solar power tower plants with molten-salt technology and parabolic trough power plants.

Currently in Spain there are 19 solar projects that are under construction, eight in the engineering phase and 24 in planning status, with investments worth more than $16 billion.

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