Covers environment, transportation, urban and regional planning, economic and social issues with a focus on Finland and Portugal.

Monday, September 1, 2008

The world’s largest photovoltaic power station [PICS]


In Amareleja, a Portuguese parish of the municipality of Moura, the rural landscape was modified by hundreds of thin metallic structures anchored on the ground by concrete foundations. These structures support arrays of solar photovoltaic modules, which convert sunlight into electricity. Like big mirrors, these new elements emerge in the middle of some trees and typical houses of Alentejo region.


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The new solar photovoltaic power station will have the highest power so far installed in the world with this technology and comprehends more than 250 hectares of land, the vast majority without any agricultural or forestry aptitude. The impressive power plant will generate 90 million KWh a year, equivalent to the consumption of 30, 000 Portuguese homes. It has 2,520 solar trackers, 141 m2 each one, supporting 262,080 photovoltaic modules.

With an area of 108.34 km2 and about 2 700 inhabitants, the little village is famous for its maximum temperature records. The good wine, the good sheep's cheese and the black pork , make it good place to enjoy a good meal. Let’s hope they can successfully implement their local low-carbon economy.














Photos by Luis Alves / www.flickr.com/photos/mokkikunta


This article is the part 4 of the article: “Alentejo: Solar Region”.

“Photovoltaic Solar in Portugal” - part 1 of the article: “Alentejo: Solar Region”
“Moura (Amareleja) Photovoltaic Power Station” - part 2 of the article: “Alentejo: Solar Region”
“Moura Renewable Energies Project“ - part 3 of the article: “Alentejo: Solar Region”

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3 comments:

BarbaraRae said...

Something about this looks very natural, beautiful and clean !

Unknown said...

The things that are going on in Spain and Portugal are wonderful - despite all the grim projections for the PV industry and the world economomical crisis - development of fast breeder nuclear reactors is going well also - I think we should switch completely on nuclear, solar , wind , hydro , geotherlemal, tidal , energy - biofuels and hydrogen important transition technologies - in fact humanity has all the tools needed to fight off the energy and climate problems - there is no political will and of course all the coal oil and gas try to influence because they are afraid that they are going out of business - still the current pace of PV development is wonderful

p.s. http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php - check how much of these large scale PV plants have been build in 2008 - maybe 2009 will be even better? we'll wait and see ..

Cheers
Iliya

Unknown said...

The things that are going on in Spain and Portugal are wonderful - despite all the grim projections for the PV industry and the world economomical crisis - development of fast breeder nuclear reactors is going well also - I think we should switch completely on nuclear, solar , wind , hydro , geotherlemal, tidal , energy - biofuels and hydrogen important transition technologies - in fact humanity has all the tools needed to fight off the energy and climate problems - there is no political will and of course all the coal oil and gas try to influence because they are afraid that they are going out of business - still the current pace of PV development is wonderful

p.s. http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php - check how much of these large scale PV plants have been build in 2008 - maybe 2009 will be even better? we'll wait and see ..

Cheers
Iliya