ACCIONA Connects its First Floating Photovoltaic Plant to the Grid

Guillermo Fernández Vara, President of the Junta (Regional Government) of Extremadura, and ACCIONA President José Manuel Entrecanales inaugurated the first grid-connected floating photovoltaic solar plant in Spain on the Sierra Brava reservoir (Extremadura).

The inauguration ceremony was also attended by Olga García, Regional Minister for Ecological Transition and Sustainability of the Junta de Extremadura, together with ACCIONA Energía CEO Rafael Mateo and Joaquín Mollinedo, ACCIONA Director-General of Institutional Relations, Sustainability and Brand.

The Sierra Brava photovoltaic plant is an innovative demonstration project that will allow the study of a range of technical solutions for the installation of solar panels on lakes or reservoirs. It consists of 3,000 photovoltaic modules of different types, distributed across five floating structures with different layouts, orientation and inclination. The aim is to analyse their performance in terms of production and the installation and maintenance costs of the different solutions.

The Sierra Brava plant is located on the southern shore of the Sierra Brava reservoir in the municipality of Zorita (Cáceres) and covers 12,000m2, i.e. 0.07% of the total surface area of the reservoir (1,650 hectares).

The environmental protection measures in the project include the installation of two floating ‘islands’ to encourage birds to nest and the provision of nesting boxes for the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), a protected species that lives in the area. The monitoring programme will examine the interaction between the birds and the fish stock in the reservoir with the plant and the support measures.