Major solar power plant dedicated today in Portugal

After eight months of construction and testing, officials dedicated a new 11-megawatt solar power plant today, on schedule, near Serpa, Portugal.

The facility is in one of Europe’s sunniest areas: Portugal’s Alentejo agricultural region 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Lisbon.

Spread across a hillside pasture amid olive trees, 52,000 photovoltaic modules have begun generating enough electricity for 8,000 homes.

GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric (NYSE: GE), financed and purchased the project in an approximately US $75 million transaction last year.

PowerLight, now a subsidiary of SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR), designed, deployed, operates and maintains the plant.

The plant uses PowerLight’s PowerTracker® system that follows the sun’s daily path across the sky to generate more electricity than conventional fixed-mounted systems.

Catavento, a leading Portuguese renewable energy company, developed and manages the project, which began feeding Portugal’s electricity grid in late January.

“This project is successful because Portugal’s sunshine is plentiful, the solar power technology is proven and government policies are supportive,” said Kevin Walsh, Managing Director and leader of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services.

Generating electricity from the sun with no fuel costs or emissions, the Serpa plant is on a 60-hectare (150-acre) hillside, equivalent to the area of more than 80 football fields.

The project supports a European Union initiative by saving more than 30,000 tons a year in greenhouse gas emissions compared to equivalent fossil fuel generation. The EU this month agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Solar power enjoys widespread support in Portugal, with the backing of 77 percent of the population, according to a European Commission study published in January.

Construction of the Serpa project began in June 2006. The Serpa solar power plant incorporates photovoltaic modules from SunPower, Sanyo, Sharp and Suntech.

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