Martorell is a small industrial city close to Barcelona in Northern Spain. It is dominated by SEAT’s huge plant which can produce up to 500,000 cars per annum and employs over 10,000 people. Due to its size, the plant is also a major consumer of energy and therefore has a considerable carbon footprint: something which the company's directors are looking to change.
Early next year the ‘SEAT al Sol’ project will see the light, generating clean electric power at the Martorell plant. SEAT’s environmental conservation project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions takes full advantage of one of Spain’s greatest resources, the sun, and the high number of sunlight hours in the area of Martorell.
The project will involve installing integrated PV panels on the workshops and a factory covering an area of 320,000 square metres, which will also include the support structure of the finished vehicle parking lots. This ambitious project has been developed in collaboration with GA-Solar, which belongs to the GESTAMP Corporation. The aim is to decentralise the generation of electric energy, which means that renewable energy is both produced and consumed on-site.
13 million kWh per annum
The project has already been pre-registered with the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce and construction of the initial phase, with an output of 4 MW of grid-connected power, is due to begin in early 2010 and will be fully operational before the end of the year. The budgeted investment slated for implementing the first phase totals 17 million Euros.
By installing more than 10 MW of PV panels, the system will generate more than 13 million kwh of electricity annually, or the equivalent of the electricity consumption required by 3,000 households per year. At the same time, generating clean electric energy will avoid the emission of more than 6,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
As soon as the first phase is up and running, the Martorell solar power plant will be the second-largest building integrated PV facility in terms of production of its kind in Spain and one of the largest in Europe.
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