Statkraft begins 860MW wind, solar development in Spain

Norwegian state-owned utility Statkraft plans to build and operate three onshore wind farms with a combined capacity of 445.5MW and two solar photovoltaic (PV) parks with 415MW in Spain, as part of its target to develop 3GW of renewable assets locally until 2025.

The company is developing the 170.5MW Prada, 154MW Rebordechao and 121MW Barjas wind farms, according to documents recently filed at the Spanish energy and environment ministry. Both Prada and Rebordechao would be located in the Ourense province in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia, while Barjas would be spread across Ourense and the neighbouring Leon province in Castilla y Leon.

The projects have recently started early environmental licensing at federal level, as each of them have more than 50MW of capacity.

Statkraft expects construction of the wind farms to start in 2023, with a commercial operation start date (COD) anticipated for 2025, it told Argus today.

It has also started developing two solar PV projects in southern Spain with a total capacity of 415MW. The 250MW Fausita in the Murcia region and the 165MW Benahavis in Cadiz province in Andalucia are both expected to reach ready-to-build status in 2022, it said.

PPAs and project development

Statkraft first entered the Spanish market in early 2018 as the offtaker of a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for electricity from the 175MW Don Rodrigo solar PV plant in Andalusia. The project was developed by German renewable energy company BayWa RE and subsequently sold to asset manager MEAG.

The Norwegian utility has been one of the most active players in the Spanish PPA market, having signed at least seven deals as a buyer for electricity from plants totalling 749MW of capacity, Argus data show. It also signed at least three PPAs as a seller, with Spanish utilities Fortia Energia and Audax Renovables (see table).

Only one of the three PPAs as a seller is explicitly for power generated from wind farms — the two unnamed wind farms with 93MW of capacity are part of Statkraft's Spanish portfolio but belong to an undisclosed third-party company.

Statkraft opened an office in Madrid in March 2019 and later that year launched its Iberian project development business. It has been expanding its Spanish portfolio through both co-development agreements and its own greenfield projects, as well as through mergers and acquistions.

It recently completed the acquisition of UK-based developer Solarcentury, which has a 6GW pipeline of projects in Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, France, Greece, Italy and Chile. In Spain alone, Solarcentury has some 2GW of projects, including the recently announced Los Predios and Los Hierros with a combined 175MW.

"As a result we have a combined portfolio of 2.1GW of solar projects and 696MW in wind under active development, with expected COD between 2022 and 2025 in Spain," Statkraft said.

The 3GW renewable target for Spain represents nearly 38pc of the company's overall objective of 8GW by 2025, of which 6GW will be wind and 2GW solar.

Statkraft currently owns and operates 19.7GW of power capacity, of which around 18GW are renewable assets. It also manages 28GW from third parties.

By Juan Weik