- The installation, called Estrella Solar, is located in an area that used to be occupied by the Emma mine and its construction involved the employment of 200 professionals, mainly from the surrounding area.
- Endesa accompanied the construction and commissioning of this installation with an ambitious Shared Value Creation plan in which society was involved in its development through training courses in renewable energy, the donation of construction material and a commitment to contracting local labour.
- Now that it is operational, the installation will have its own personnel who will work together with a local shepherd whose animals will graze in the plant to help clear the land naturally and a beekeeper who will install his hives where he will produce solar honey.
Endesa, through its renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power España, has commissioned the Estrella Solar solar plant, located on what used to be the Emma de Encasur mine, between the municipalities of Puertollano, Almodóvar del Campo and Brazatortas in Castille-La Mancha.
The new installation, the construction of which involved up to 200 professionals, more than 51% of whom were from the surrounding area, has a capacity of 35 megawatts (MW) and will be capable of producing 69 gigawatt hours per year (GWh), that is, the energy consumed by a town like Puertollano in one year.
The Estrella Solar plant was built applying the latest safety technology, including the application of Active Safety technology in machinery and drone inspections to monitor the work. This installation has bifacial photovoltaic panels that capture not only direct sunlight, but also of indirect rays that are reflected from the ground. The new plant also has 8.8 km of underground medium-voltage lines and 5 power transformation centres.
"The construction of a solar plant like Estrella Solar is iconic for us," says Maruxa Quintáns, head of the project, "the fact that it is in an area where we once used to extract minerals and now produce clean energy such as solar power, represents a before and after both for the area and also for our company."
Now that it is operational, the company has developed a plan for the Creation of Shared Value which includes donating the material used during the construction of the plant to different local associations, such as 10 kW self-consumption photovoltaic panels, rainwater collection tanks, efficient lighting and the two defibrillators that used to be in the construction sheds.
With the development of this installation, Endesa, through its renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power España, takes the local community very much into account and this is why training courses were organised so as to have specialised personnel during construction and a further step was taken by promoting courses for personnel who will now be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the installation and the natural clearing of the land.
A total of 51 people from the surrounding area were trained in the assembly of solar panels and 12 people with disabilities from the Aspades Association and the Fuente Agria Foundation, with the aim of improving the employability of their members in the maintenance and clearing of photovoltaic plants.
The plant is now in operation and will coexist with a local shepherd who will take his sheep to graze between solar panels, a form of natural clearing of the land that benefits both the shepherd, who has a protected, pesticide-free environment, and the solar plant itself, which has sheep as an ally when it comes to maintenance. A local beekeeper, Moremiel, installed his hives inside our installation a month ago. There is a total of 200 hives he uses during transhumance, and in the future it is expected that solar honey will be produced there. In fact, the coexistence of solar plants with local beekeepers is a pioneering initiative by Endesa that is being implemented in all installations, and this is the company's second in Castille-La Mancha.
Through its renewable subsidiary Enel Green Power España (EGPE), last year Endesa selected Castille-La Mancha for 8 of the 20 clean energy projects it put into operation in Spain. The company built 5 solar and 3 wind installations in Castille-La Mancha, with total capacity of 426.5 MW, enough to supply all the homes in the Castille-La Mancha region for five months.
The renewable energy generation initiatives implemented by Endesa so far have led to the creation of 1,400 direct jobs for qualified people. Endesa has expressed its commitment to continue expanding in the region with new projects, several of which are currently under construction, including the Calatrava and La Revuelta solar plants in Manzanares and the Puertollano solar plants (Estrella Solar that is already operational and Rocinante).
About Endesa
Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. The company is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers, through Endesa X, value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and Public Administrations, including electric mobility, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power España, the digitalisation of grids through e-distribución, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,260 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, Europe’s largest electricity group.