Torresol Energy, a joint venture between Masdar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mubadala Development Co., and SENER, an international multidiscipline engineering company, with offices in Abu Dhabi, has secured USD 760 million project finance loans for the construction of its twin Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants – Valle 1 and Valle 2 – in Andalucía, Spain. The total investment value for the two plants is USD 1 billion. Work on the two 50MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants began in March 2009 and is the first time that twin thermo solar plants have been built simultaneously. Both plants incorporate energy solutions developed by SENER, including molten salt thermal storage capacity of up to 7.5hrs. This means that the plants will be capable of generating electricity at night and through periods of poor sunlight, enabling a continuous supply of electricity and overcoming intermittency, one of the drawbacks of some renewable technologies. Valle 1 & 2, together with the Gemasolar Central Tower Plant (17MW / 110GWh per year), which was project financed in November 2008 and continues to progress construction as expected, represents a total investment by Torresol Energy of USD 1.4 billion across 3 CSP projects over the past 12 months.
