Farming the suns rays in Granadilla.
It’s not often I post an article in both the “Inspiration” and “Island Life” categories simultaneously. But looking out the bus window earlier last month, I noticed a strange series of dark, tilted platforms located in an arid coastal region of Granadilla. They’re only visible from freeway TF1 for a few seconds. To my eyes, it appeared to be a vast series of solar-cell panels forming one giant array.
Well after doing a bit of investigating, the project turns out to be called “SOLTEN“, constructed and operated by the Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables (ITER). My hunch was correct: SOLTEN is reportedly the biggest photovoltaic solar power station in Europe, so I’m really suprised I haven’t heard about it before!
The SOLTEN solar installation was initially expected to consist of 150 solar energy modules; each module was comprised of 576 photovoltaic solar cell panels distributed in 24 rows and yielding up to 100 kilowatts of electricity. The installation was expected to generate a total energy capacity of 15 Megawatts of power. Source.
Instead, SOLTEN has been conceived in two steps, SOLTEN I and SOLTEN II. The photovoltaic solar units ultilised in the SOLTEN project are fabricated by Kyocera, ITER, Yingli and Solarworld. The good news is that the energy that is generated will be connected to the local electricity grid, which is managed by Unelco-Endesa. [Read more →]
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