Spanish company to build the largest solar power plant in Europe

Spanish utilities company Iberdrola will invest over EUR 300 million to build a solar power plant with a capacity of 590 MW in Spain’s Extremadura region, making it the largest such project in Europe and one of the largest in the world, according to Bloomberg.The plant, which will be called Pizarro, will house about 1.7 million solar panels on a 1,300-hectare site and will be ready by 2022. The developer says it will be able to meet the annual power needs of 375,000 people. Iberdrola is planning to build 3 GW of solar and wind on the Spanish market by 2022, most of which will be photovoltaic. The company also has solar farms in Mexico and the US. Spain has seen its renewable energy market booming in the past few years as the government has encouraged such initiatives. The country’s energy strategy involves closing down all seven of its nuclear power plants by 2035 and a transition to exclusively renewable sources by 2050.