EPURON sells project rights for CSP project Orellana to Acciona

The 50-megawatt project is located in Southwest Spain

Hamburg, 21 April 2010. EPURON GmbH has sold the project rights for its first developed and ready-to-build concentrated solar power project to the listed Spanish conglomerate Acciona SA. The Orellana project, situated in Extremadura, an autonomous region in Southwest Spain, will have a capacity of 49.9 megawatts once constructed. The total investment varies between 250 and 300 million euros.

The contract with Acciona governing the transfer of the project rights for Orellana was already concluded in summer 2009, but was subject to the condition that Orellana be remunerated with the feed-in tariff established in Royal Decree Law 6/2009. As this prerequisite has now been met, the project can enter into the implementation phase.

Acciona is a world leader in renewable energies and is one of the main IWPP (independent water and power producer), with around 8,900 MW installed at the end of 2009, mainly in windpower. The company owns two operational CSP plants in the US (64-MW Nevada Solar One) and Spain (50-MW Alvarado I), where it plans to reach 250 MW installed in five plants up to 2013 including the Orellana project.

"We are very pleased that our Spanish team has completed the development of such a complex and major project as Orellana", says EPURON Managing Director Joachim Müller. "This proves that we were able to successfully implement the change in strategy regarding the Greenfield project development in the solar sector outside of Germany. Moreover, we are pleased to have found the right investor with Acciona, who is a strong player in the Spanish CSP market and on whom we can fully rely for the project realization."

“We are very pleased with the agreement with EPURON which will allow us to reinforce our leadership in CSP in Spain, using in-house technology of proven reliability”, says ACCIONA Energy’s Managing Director of Solar Thermal Business, José Monzonís.