Spanish energy company Acciona Energía is planning an agrivoltaic project to be rolled out across the Orellana Canal in Cáceres, in the west of the country. Spain.
The company says the PVORELLANA project “will demonstrate a new solution and a new business model for photovoltaic energy generation: agrovoltaic solar channels, a sustainable technology that can produce energy thanks to photovoltaic panels placed on water channels.”
It adds that the main objective of the project is to demonstrate the economic and technical viability of the technology, which is expected to deliver better electrical performance thanks to the cooling effect of the water film under the panels, as well as “additional benefits such as water savings, the minimizing the effect of evaporation in the canals or optimizing land use.”
Proyectos Renovables Innovadores (PRI), a subsidiary of Acciona Energía, will implement the project. It is expected to cover 2 km of the canal and have a production capacity of up to 5,011 MW (7,857 MWh per year) of solar energy.
The company says PVORELLANA will be the first small-scale commercial demonstrator of the “Top Canal” photovoltaic technology in Europe. The project will receive €2.07 million ($2.2 million) in grants from the European Commission’s Innovation Fund.
Acciona Energía says the fund’s support “will be essential to accelerate this phase and allow the company to develop new projects that replicate and scale up the PVORELLANA solution in other channels in the short to medium term.”
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