By RIA Novosti
Madrid : A Spanish company, Avanzalia Solar, has launched the world’s largest solar power plant in Salamanca, the company said Wednesday.
The facility, called Planta Solar de Salamanca, consists of 70,000 modules on a site of 36 hectares. It produces 13.8 MW of energy, enough to meet the needs of 5,000 houses. The company plans to gradually increase the output to 25 MW.
The plant breaks the 12 MW record of a solar power plant in Bavaria, Germany. It will help save 3,800 metric tonnes of oil a year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6,100 metric tonnes.
“It is evident that, together with wind power, the sun is the only alternative source of energy that will allow Spain to reduce its dependence on the import of oil,” said Carlos Galdon, the company’s president.
The project was carried out in conjunction with Kyocera Corporation, a leading Japanese producer of solar modules.
One means of reducing carbon emissions and halting global warming is to develop renewable energy sources, such as sunlight, water, wind, tides and geothermal heat. However, despite the fact that these sources do not harm the environment, the use of alternative energies is rare. Hydropower accounts for 2-3 percent of the global energy output, and other forms of alternative energy account for less than one percent.