Technology

The Basque multinational has announced the opening of its first blade plant on the Asian subcontinent. The aim is to for the plant to produce blades for Gamesa’s G5X-850 kW and G9X-2.0 MW wind turbine systems. Gamesa plans to reinforce its position in India – a country which it sees as strategic to its growth plans – through the opening of this plant.

At the beginning of January, Red Electrica de España (Spain’s grid operator) published details of the electricity system during 2011. It was a year which saw contracting demand, which fell 1.2%, 33% of which was covered by renewable energy. With regard to clean energy sources, two facts stand out: a record high for wind output in November and the growth in solar generation.

“Rail chargers” have been born. Antonio González Marín, the President of Spain’s Railway Infrastructures Administrator (ADIF), and Ángel Luis Serrano Serrano, President of Isofotón and Vice President of Affirma, have signed a non-exclusive marketing agreement for the “rail charger” system (known in Spanish as “Ferrolinera”) for a period of three years, setting forth the formulae for cooperating to roll out this system in Spain and abroad.

They are like sunflowers. Throughout the day they follow the sun and allow light to be focused when, how and where needed to illuminate or provide heat in a home or office. The clever device has been invented by the company Solar MEMS Technologies.

A project developed by Ainia Centro Tecnológico leverages two of the by-products from the production of biogas (the digestate resulting from anaerobic digestion and the CO2 from combustion) to grow microalgae. In turn, the microalgae serve as a feedstock for the biogas plant. Researchers at this technology centre in Paterna (Valencia) highlight that this technique improves the efficiency, profitability and sustainability of such facilities.

The Basque Energy Agency (EVE) and the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) have just agreed to create a new public company that will own Bimep, the infrastructure for marine energy research located in Armintza in the municipality of Lemoiz (Bizkaia). The facility will be the first of its kind in Spain and the second in Europe.

The Spanish technologist continues to triumph in the Egyptian market, where it recently drew bids from the world's major turbine manufacturers and was awarded the tender to deliver 200 MW of onshore turbines for projects in the Gulf of Suez, which had been put up for bidding.

T-Solar Group has signed three loans agreements totalling $145 million dollars with which it closes the financing of the two solar photovoltaic plants (44 MW) the company is building in Arequipa, southern Peru.

The Spanish multinational recently announced that it has commissioned the Golice wind farm, in which it reveals that it has made an investment of around 223 million zlotys (€57 million). With an installed capacity of 38 MW, Acciona calculates that the facility will generate clean electricity equivalent to the consumption of around 40,000 Polish homes and will avoid the emission of 77,625 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere per annum.

The power company has completed the construction of the extension of its pilot plant to capture CO2 using microalgae on the site of its Litoral de Almeria thermal plant. The main objective, explains Endesa, is to test new types of photo-bioreactors and microalgae (some genetically modified), and "develop recovery processes for the biomass obtained as a first step towards demonstrating the technical and economic viability of the plant". The aim is to pave the way for industrial operations.