Europe's largest solar plant to be built in Spain
Spanish industrial group ACS is to construct Europe's largest solar facility in the Spanish region of Aragón. The 549 MW plant will include 12 substations and will cost €330m ($390m) to construct. Currently, Europe's largest solar facility is a 300 MW installation near Bordeaux in France.

The government of the Spanish region of Aragón announced it will fast-track the development of a 549 MW PV project that Spain’s industrial conglomerate ACS hopes to build in an area located between the municipalities of Escatrón and Chiprana.

The Government Council has decided to classify the investment “of public interest for the region”, in order to halve the usual administrative procedures for the project’s authorization.

The €330 million plant will consist of 12 sub-stations. They will be owned by special purpose vehicles under the control of Cobras Concesiones SL, a unit of Cobra, which is itself the renewable energy arm of the group ACS. The company has already submitted approval requests to the relevant environmental authorities of the region for all the project’s units, the local government said.

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When completed, Cobra’s project will be Europe’s largest solar power plant. Currently, the Old Continent’s biggest solar park is a 300 MW solar plant located in Cestas, in France’s Bordeaux region.

The project was selected by Spain’s Ministry of Ministry of Energy, Tourism and the Digital Agenda in this year’s second renewable energy auction held in July, in which 3.9 GW of solar capacity was allocated. In the auction, the ACS group had the largest share of solar projects with around 1.55 GW of assigned capacity. The PV projects selected in the contest must start delivering power in 2020.