Acciona Energia confirms auction award for biomass-fired plant in Spain

Spanish renewables pure-player Acciona Energia (BME:ANE) will get to build its 49.9-MW biomass-fired power plant in the region of Extremadura, western Spain, after securing guaranteed remuneration for the electricity in the government’s auction this week.

The company confirmed the award on Wednesday, saying that it already has in its hands a favourable environmental impact declaration for the project.

The initiative will see Acciona Energia build a power plant spanning 90,000 square metres (968,752 sq ft) with 110,000 square metres of storage area. The site is located in the municipality of Logrosan, some ten kilometres (6.2 miles) from the town centre.

The facility will consume some 261,000 metric tonnes of agricultural and forestry biomass per year, sourced mainly from the surrounding area. The power output is estimated at 376 GWh/per, Acciona Energia said.

Construction of the Logrosan plant is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2023. The company will aim to start producing electricity in the second half of 2025.

Acciona Energia was among three bidders to secure the capacity and remuneration for a biomass-based power project in the Spanish government's auction for a mix of “firm renewables” on Tuesday. The government offered a total of 520 MW of capacity to be spread between proposals for concentrated solar power (CSP), small-scale solar PV, biomass-fired and projects using technologies labelled “other”. Of the total, only bidders on biomass and solar PV took home awards, which totalled 177 MW. The remaining 343 MW of capacity went unassigned in part due to high bidding prices, according to the Spanish ministry for the ecological transition.

Utility-scale wind and solar PV projects were excluded from this round, and will be in competition in a separate event in November.

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