IBERDROLA has allocated some €25,000 million to developing economically sustainable renewable energies in the last decade. This is the highest figure ever invested by a company in this field.
With over 200 wind farms in Spain and 330 elsewhere in the world, these investments mean that the company now has a renewable installed capacity of over 14,000 MW, making it one of the global leaders in the sector.
In keeping with this pioneering commitment, IBERDROLA will also be the first Spanish company to commission an offshore wind farm: West of Duddon Sands (United Kingdom), with a capacity of almost 400 MW, which will be connected to the grid in the year 2014.
In this regard, the company remains at the forefront of research (€145 million in 2012 alone) and the promotion of new renewable technologies for generating electricity, such as offshore facilities (offshore wind farms and wave and tidal energy plants). It set up a specific business department with headquarters in Scotland to promote this technology and nowadays the capacity of the projects managed amounts to 8,000 MW.
IBERDROLA’s decisive support for the development of renewable energies has not only exerted a pull effect on the economy of many rural areas in the last decade. It has also led to the creation of 2,500 jobs in this field, of which 800 are based in Spain. In 2012 alone, this team commissioned a further 130 MW of wind power in Spain and 400 MW elsewhere in the world.
These facilities follow other clean energy plants, which are also sustainable and efficient and which have either just been commissioned (the San Esteban II hydroelectric power plant, in Orense) or are scheduled to be connected to the grid by the end of this year (the La Muela II pumped storage plant in Valencia). Both of these facilities also confirm IBERDROLA’s historical commitment to this type of energy, which provides almost 9,900 MW of the group’s current capacity of 46,000 MW.
Over 70% of capacity in Spain is emissions-free
The company’s firm commitment to these environmentally friendly technologies that do not produce greenhouse gas emissions is proven by the fact that at the end of the first quarter of 2013, almost 60% of its installed capacity worldwide was emissions-free. In Spain, this figure amounted to 72%. 58% of IBERDROLA’s world output in this period was clean energy. In the case of Spain, this percentage rose to 92%.
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Press release, June 06, 2013; Image: iberdrola