The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide €66m ($73m) to French investment bank Natixis to co-finance the construction of nine solar projects with a total capacity of 436MW in Spain.
Under the two deals signed at the COP25 climate summit in Madrid, the EU bank and Natixis will provide funding for the two new complexes located in the provinces of Valladolid, Salamanca, Caceres, Huesca and Seville.
The EIB will firstly provide €25m to Natixis to build eight solar plants with a capacity of 254MW. These projects are owned by Spanish developer Solaria which was among the successful bidders in the country’s July 2017 renewables auction.
Three of the plants will be located in the municipality of Tordesillas in Valladolid. A further three will be built in Salamanca – two in Valdelosa and one in Palacios del Arzobispo – another in the municipality of Casatejada in Caceres, and one in Huesca, in the municipality of Polenino.
The EU bank will also provide €41m to Natixis to support the construction of a 182MW solar project in Alcala de Guadaira in Seville. The project, promoted by Spanish company Novasol Invest La Isla, was also successful in the July 2017 auction.
The EIB recently announced it would stop financing new fossil-fuel power projects by the end of 2021 as part of a revised lending policy that it said will help unlock €1trn of sustainable investment in the decade to 2030, to aid the EU as it seeks to hit a renewable energy target of a 32% share by then.
Spanish utility Iberdrola announced last month it aims to build 400MW of new solar in the country, starting with the construction of the Majada Alta and Santa Antonio PV farms, near Cáceres, taking its current in-construction renewable energy portfolio in Spain to more than 2.5GW, including the 590MW Francisco Pizarro project, the largest PV plant under development in Europe.
Industry body SolarPower Europe believes the booming Spanish market might add up to 19.5GW of new PV by 2023 and is among the top seven PV market prospects globally, driven by supportive policies and emerging opportunities for corporate renewable power purchase agreements – such as the recent deal between Iberdrola and Nike.
