Greening Portugal: Mega Solar Power Plant Begins to Operate

January 4, 2009

By Mario de Queiroz, Inter Press Service News Agency
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AMARELEJA, Portugal - The most ambitious and innovative solar power project
in the world kicked off Monday in this white-walled village in the southern Portuguese municipality of Moura, one of the most impoverished areas in the European Union.

The Acciona Energy S.A. company has put into service
the Amareleja photovoltaic power plant, located 150 km
south of Lisbon, which is capable of producing enough
energy to supply 30,000 households in the south-central
region of Alentejo.

Almost simultaneously, the mayor of Moura, Jose Maria
Prazeres Pos-de-Mina, was selected as one of the ten
finalists for the prestigious 2008 People of the Year
award granted by OneWorld, a non-governmental news
network that is one of the most highly-respected
international organisations devoted to raising
environmental awareness and promoting change.

The only requirement for nomination was that the
candidates embody the values of OneWorld, which include
human rights for all, fair distribution of the world's
natural and economic resources, simple and sustainable
ways of life, the right of every individual to inform
and be informed, participation and transparency in
decision-making, and social, cultural, and linguistic
diversity.

Pos-de-Mina, who was born 50 years ago in Pias, another
village in the municipality of Moura, keeps a low
profile, but has nevertheless become famous throughout
Europe as "the mayor of the future" for his pioneering
work in renewable energy.

The grandson, son and nephew of prominent anti-fascist
activists who were persecuted and incarcerated by
Portugal's 1926-1974 dictatorship, Pos-de-Mina became
politically active at an early age when he joined the
Union of Communist Students, an organisation that
played a major role in the opposition to the
dictatorial regime.

But his militant background did not prevent Pos-de-Mina
from becoming a skilful businessman, and after earning
a BA in business administration he took on the
challenge of founding the Amper Solar power company,
planting the seed for what is now the world's largest
solar energy plant.

Located in the Baldio da Ferraria, a 250-hectare sun-
scorched plain, the plant was built at a cost of 410
million dollars in the sunniest area of Portugal, the
European country with the greatest number of sunlight
hours per year.

The reputation of this unassuming mayor of a small
municipality of Portugal has transcended national
borders, as he has come to be known as the architect of
the most ambitious renewable energy project in the
world. "It all happened without my even realising it,"
Pos-de-Mina confessed modestly when he learned that
OneWorld described him as "the mayor of the future."

The Amareleja Power Plant project involves photovoltaic
(PV) technology that uses semiconductors to convert the
sun's rays into electric power. Within a year, the
plant will have an installed capacity of 46 megawatts
(MW).

It is expected to be operating at full capacity by the
year 2010, when it will produce 64 MW using 2,520 solar
trackers supporting 262 modules with 268,000 PV panels
producing 93 gigawatts/hour per year, generating
sufficient electricity to power 30,000 homes.

The plant's solar power production will contribute
enormously to helping Portugal meet its greenhouse gas
reduction commitments, drastically cutting carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions by 152,000 tons a year.

"This project is important for Moura and for Alentejo,
but it is also important because of its contribution to
the development of Portugal and its significance in
Europe due to its size, as it will convert sunlight
into 64 million watts," making it 12 times bigger than
the largest solar power plant that exists today in the
EU, which is located in Germany and produces five
million watts, Pos-de-Mina told IPS in a recent
interview.

At the same time, the municipality of Moura launched
the Sunflower project, which involves a network of
eight municipalities from eight different countries in
Europe (Bulgaria, Britain, the Czech Republic, France,
Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) that seek to
transform their towns into what the EU calls "Zero
Carbon Communities" under its Intelligent Energy -
Europe (IEE) programme for the promotion of alternative
energy sources.

Sunflower's goal is to "convert these EU communities
into environments free of CO2 emissions by turning them
into areas where only renewable energies are used,"
Pos-de-Mina added. The idea is to "conduct campaigns to
raise awareness on the use of renewable energies and
the benefits for the population," he said.

Pos-de-Mina's work in Amareleja and the Sunflower
project earned him the nomination for the OneWorld
award. Both efforts began as a way of finding solutions
to the area's growing economic problems, but eventually
turned into pioneer initiatives that serve as
encouraging examples for the entire world.

For this pragmatic communist mayor and businessman,
harnessing Alentejo's abundant sunlight seemed like
"the most obvious way" to develop alternative renewable
energy sources that would in turn create jobs in a
region where unemployment - at 15 percent - is twice
the national average.

In 2007, the municipality of Moura sold the 88 percent
stake it held in Amper Solar - owner of the plant
installation rights - to the Spanish company Acciona,
which has since become the sole shareholder in the
solar plant, after the minority shareholders decided to
follow the municipality's example.

Portugal's solar, wind, and wave energy projects have
received unconditional backing from the European
Commission, the executive body of the EU, which seeks
to speed up the continent's transition to a low-CO2
economy.

Until April 2004, Portugal's solar and wind power
generation was very low, in spite of the fact that the
country is extremely sunny and windy.

The wind energy generated in Portugal prior to 2007 was
in fact practically marginal. At present, this country
of 92,000 square kilometres and 10.6 million
inhabitants is one of the top wind power generators in
the EU.

From 2004 to 2006, several wind power parks were built
in Portugal, producing a total of 500 MW and putting
this country in third place in the EU, after Germany
(357,000 sq km and 82 million inhabitants), which
produces 1,808 MW, and Spain (504,000 sq km and 46
million inhabitants), with a production of 1,764 MW,
and ahead of Italy (301,000 sq km and 59 million
inhabitants), which has a total production of 452 MW.

The change has been so drastic that Portugal went from
being at the bottom of the EU's renewable energy
ranking to becoming one of the continent's leading
generators.