2025: Europe’s largest solar farm will operate in Portugal

It will supply electricity to a population twice the city of Porto

The Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, together with Prosolia Energy have announced that they have obtained an environmental license to create the largest solar park in Europe with a capacity of 1200 MW. The facility will be located in southern Portugal, near the city of Santiago do Cacém, Setubal District, and it is expected to become operational in 2025.

The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) has cleared the last hurdle standing in the way of the project, which would supply clean energy to 430,000 homes per year – twice the size of a city like Porto. What’s more, the solar farm would bring about 2,500 jobs to the local economy.

There’s space for social development and biodiversity, too

On a global scale, the future photovoltaic park (to be named Fernando Pessoa) will be the fifth largest in the world. Thanks to its capacity, it will avoid the consumption of 370 million cubic metres of gas per year. And this is welcome news in the times of energy source anxiety that we are currently inhabiting.

The park was initially meant to be even slightly bigger but following environmental protests, it was reformulated. It now provides for the installation of just under 2 million photovoltaic solar panels, distributed across four sub-parks, in an area of almost 1,245 hectares, according to the document consulted by Portuguese news agency Lusa, at the time of the public consultation.

The project includes a Socio-Economic Actions Programme, which includes measures such as professional training in the area of energy or support for the tourism sector, in addition to the supply of solar energy to nearby communities.

Plus, the environmental aspect of the development has been taken into account.

The corporate press release states: "With regard to the protection of biodiversity, the land will be able to be used by local shepherds as pasture for sheep farming and beehives will be introduced, which will help to improve the stability of ecosystems and increase crop yields in the surrounding agricultural land”.