The Serpa Solar Installation in Portugal

The 11 MW Serpa solar plant was completed in January 2007. It briefly held the crown as the largest photovoltaic power plant in the world. It uses state of the art solar tracking technology provided by PowerLight to follow the sun's path throughout the day, resulting in greater panel efficiency than a fixed frame system would allow. Funding for this project was supplied by General Electric Financial Services and they own the installation. It uses 52,000 panels manufactured by SunPower, Sanyo, Sharp and Suntech. The cost of the installation was in the vicinity of $USD 75 million.

The installation covers 60 hectares or 150 acres of of hillside agricultural land which is still used for grazing. This project saves approximately 30,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide emissions per year compared to fossil fuel power generation. This plant begins to address Portugal's heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels, mainly natural gas. It also targets Portugal's increasing carbon dioxide emissions, currently 34% higher than their 1990 level. The Portugese government has recently stated they are now aiming to have 45% of their national power produced by renewable technologies. This is probably somewhat optimistic given an annual increase in power consumption of 5% across the country.