EDP to build €4M floating solar energy facility on Alqueva reservoir

Portugal’s diversified electricity producer EDP will move forward with a project for a floating solar energy facility on the Alqueva dam, an investment of €4 million, which should start producing energy at the end of this year, the electricity company announced on Tuesday.

In a statement, EDP said that the project for a facility with 12,000 solar panels on the Alqueva dam reservoir “has received the green light to begin construction,” noting that the “aim is for it to produce energy at the end of this year and supply the equivalent of 25% of families in the region.

After obtaining the final license to begin the installation, “it is expected that work on the ground will begin in the summer and that by the end of this year it may already be producing energy,” the company added.

With an annual production capacity of 7GWh, the expectation is that this floating solar facility will supply the equivalent of 25% of the region’s consumers (Portel and Moura).

The facility, which will also have a storage system with batteries, will be integrated with the Alqueva hydroelectric plant, a pumped hydroelectric plant and one of the largest energy storage systems in the country.

“This project is being designed in a hybrid operating model, as the pumping system allows wind and solar energy to be used, in periods of lower consumption, to pump water from the reservoir and, in this way, reuse it to produce new hydroelectric energy.”