Acciona Energia (Acciona) has started construction work on its 50 megawatt (MW) concentrated solar power plant at Majadas de Tietar, Spain. The plant will enter service in the second half of 2010 and will create between 300 and 400 jobs in the construction phase. The energy produced by the plant will be sufficient for 30,000 homes. The Majadas plant will have a solar field of 135 hectares. Eight hundred solar collectors will be installed on the site, covering a total of 48 linear miles.

Total 192,000 mirrors will be there in the solar installation. These mirrors concentrate the sun’s rays onto collectors located in its focal line. Fluid runs through a circuit that heats it up to temperatures above 400 degrees. This fluid is used to produce water vapor and drive a conventional turbine that, connected to a generator, produces electricity.

The project will create around 350 jobs in the construction phase and a further 31 in the operational phase, plus a large number of indirect and ancillary jobs in the area, located in the northern part of Caceres province.

The production of the plant will avoid the emission of 97,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power stations. This will have a cleansing effect on the atmosphere equivalent to the photosynthesis of 5 million trees.

By the end of 2010 Acciona plans to have five concentrating solar power plants in operation –four in Spain and one in the US (in service since 2007)- accounting for an overall investment of around EUR1.25 billion.

This is the third solar plant built by Acciona in Spain, after Alvarado I (Badajoz), which will enter service in summer of 2009 and Palma del Rio II (Cordoba), which will be completed by the spring of 2010. All these facilities have a capacity of 50 MW and use the same technology applied by Acciona in its “Nevada Solar One” plant (64 MW), which has been operational since June 2007.

In June 2009 Acciona expects to start construction work on its fourth solar plant (Palma del Rio I). This facility will also have a capacity of 50 MW and its entry into service is planned for the end of 2010. The company will thus achieve its objective of 200 MW of solar thermal power capacity installed in Spain by the end of 2010, contributing to the national Renewables Plan: 500 MW by 2010.

Acciona is currently going through administrative procedures for a fifth solar plant Alvarado II, again with a capacity of 50 MW -, which will be built after the others.

The Majadas facility, like the others developed by Acciona in Spain, is based on solar trough collector technology, which the company has satisfactorily tested in its “Nevada Solar One” plant.

Acciona uses its own technology in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of this type of plant.