Iberdrola and Solvay are partnering in a new project to supply green electricity to Solvay’s plants in Tavaux and Saint Fons (France). Under the agreement, a 172-hectare site will be used to build a photovoltaic power plant, part of whose output will be purchased by Solvay for its industrial plants through a 20-year corporate power purchase agreement.
The solar installation, which will be built and operated by Iberdrola Renouvelables France, will occupy 77 hectares and will have around 100,000 photovoltaic modules. The rest of the available area will be dedicated to preservation measures to ensure the full integration of the project into its surroundings. The plant will produce almost 75 gigawatt hours per year (GWh/year), making it one of the largest in Europe. Sixty per cent of the green electricity produced will go to Solvay’s industrial sites in Tavaux and Saint Fons (France).
Iberdrola offers itself as a strategic partner to corporations and companies through tailor-made clean energy solutions that enable them to meet their climate targets and secure their energy supply. Given this scenario, the ETaaS (Energy Transition as a Service) concept arises, which encompasses all those energy services that will help companies reduce their carbon footprint. In this case, both the solar photovoltaic installation and the corporate PPA are part of the “Energy Transition as a Service” product portfolio.
The land which Solvay has earmarked for this project includes two rehabilitated settling ponds from its former soda ash plant in the communes of Herbitzheim-Willerwald-Sarralbe in the departments of Bas-Rhin and Moselle in the Grand Est region of France. The fact that this scheme gives a second industrial life to brownfield sites for the generation of renewable energy is also important, as it accelerates the ecological transformation of the economy.
Solvay is a Belgian-French multinational chemical company established in 1863, with its headquarters located in Neder-Over-Heembeek, Brussels, Belgium.
(Source and image: Iberdrola)