Acciona Energia adds new floater to floating solar demo plant in Spain

Spanish renewables pure-player Acciona Energia (BME:ANE) said on Thursday that it has installed a new floater to its 1.125-MWp floating solar demonstration plant in at the Sierra Brava reservoir in the region of Extremadura, western Spain.

The new floating structure consists of a two-milimetre-thick reinforced hydro-elastic membrane that holds 770 solar photovoltaic modules. Equipped with its own mooring and anchoring system, the membrane has more flexibility and can withstand strong waves and winds. According to Acciona Energia, this makes the floater suitable for use not only on reservoirs and marshes, but also at sea.

Additionally, the solar modules are fixed at zero degrees, enabling the system to avoid the “sail effect” during wind gusts.

The new unit joins five adjacent floating systems which Acciona Energia installed and grid-connected in 2020 as part of a pilot project aimed at studying the performance of different floating solar solutions. At the time of installation, the Sierra Brava demo plant was the first grid-connected floating solar facility in Spain.

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