Renewable energy investment intentions total €60B, 25% of GDP
Portugal currently has 17 gigawatts of renewable energy installed capacity, and that since the beginning of last year (2022) it has already licensed another four gigawatts of solar energy.
The minister of environment and climate action, Duarte Cordeiro, revealed on Wednesday that the investment intentions in renewable energies in Portugal amount to €60 billion, which represents 25% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“If we could realise today all the projects, all the investment intentions in our country, in the area of energy, whether electricity or gas, we would be talking about investments in the region of 60 billion euros, 25% of our GDP,” said Duarte Cordeiro at the inauguration of the photovoltaic plant of Pessegueiro, in Pinhal Novo, municipality of Palmela and district of Setúbal.
“It is our goal to maximise all these projects. We want to realise the projects to the maximum. We know that we have challenges ahead, we have challenges in making all these investments compatible with the land. That is why it is so important to be here giving the example of Palmela, because the development of renewable energy can also be a great opportunity for the territory,” added the minister.
At the inauguration ceremony of the photovoltaic plant of Pessegueiro, the environment minister also recalled that the energy transition with a focus on renewable energy was already a priority for the government, but that this strategy was accelerated due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
“The war accelerated all these objectives. The war forced the government, on the one hand, to worry about containing energy prices for families and businesses, but it also accelerated all these strategic objectives that we had already defined,” stressed the minister.
“We have an ambitious goal which is to reach the end of this mandate with 80% of our electricity produced by renewable sources. We look at the first months of the year and we already have over 70% of our electricity produced from renewable sources. Of course we depend on wind and hydroelectric energy, because if we have a drought year, if we have less wind, obviously this percentage decreases”, he added.
Duarte Cordeiro also said that Portugal currently has 17 gigawatts of renewable energy installed capacity, and that since the beginning of last year (2022) it has already licensed another four gigawatts of solar energy.
The Mayor of Palmela, Álvaro Amaro (CDU), stressed the importance of energy transition in the municipality, stating that “the projects already installed and those that are already licensed or under analysis, represent 1.13 gigawatts/hour of power and an annual production of 2.07 terawatts/hour, that is, 78% more than the estimated production in 2021, which continues to grow”.
“The production of electrical energy in these photovoltaic plants will make it possible to avoid the emission of more than 974,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. Palmela’s role as a carbon sink is thus deepened, as the county produces emissions in the order of 343,000 tonnes – 2020 data,” said Álvaro Amaro.
The new large-scale power plant of Pessegueiro, delivered by Smartenergy to the company EKZ, and which will be managed and monitored by Smartenergy Asset Management, will produce around 126,500 Megawatts/hour of renewable electricity per year, enough to ensure the annual energy supply of a city with 26,000 homes, and is one of the largest solar installations ever built in Portugal.
