Planning and Approvals

For the realisation of a solar farm takes extensive and detailed planning. During the approval procedure, we made sure we consulted all the relevant authorities to gain their expertise and opinions.

These included, amongst others:

Ministry for Ecological Transition

Road Authority of Andalucía

Road Authority of Seville

Historical Heritage Authority of Andalucía

Hydrological Authority

Department of Infrastructure and Housing of Andalucía

Red Eléctrica de España – the national grid operator

Endesa – Spain’s largest utility company

Ministry for Environment Affairs

Environmental Department of Andalucía

City Council of Alcalá de Guadaira

City Council of Utrera

Land surface option agreement

The land is leased from four local farmers – all cousins – as well as from the local Catholic Church, the Order of San Juan de Dios.

Grid connection capacity request

The initial request was filed in 2012. After first responses, it was clear that the grid capacity was sufficient, but an expansion of Red Eléctrica’s substation was required to physically connect the project. As such expansions are only decided at a national ministerial level once every 5 years, it was only at the end of 2014 that the Government agreed to it as part of the national expansion plan 2015 – 2020. There were still many subsequent legal steps to the expansion, along with the engineering requirements. Construction is now on track to be completed in Spring 2019.

National Ministry for Ecological Transition

This is the key agency which handles the ‘Autorización Administrativa’ – a permit that gathers the feedback and feasibility considerations of the project from all possible affected persons, companies and authorities. Only once we had obtained an exhaustive Environmental Impact Declaration from the Ministry for Environmental Affairs and a unified environmental permit from the Regional Environmental Authority in Andalucía could we obtain the ‘Autorización Administrativa’. With this in hand, we were able to start requesting the appropriate construction permits, which were handled on a local level by the Councils of Alcalá de Guadaíra and Utrera.