One of the world’s largest solar energy plants, covering the hills of a valley dotted with olive groves in southern Portugal, started delivering electricity to about 8,000 homes on Wednesday. The solar panels, which are raised around 2 meters off the ground, cover an area of 60 hectares (150 acres) and produce 11 megawatts of electricity in one of Europe’s sunniest spots — Portugal’s poor agricultural Alentejo region. GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of General Electric, financed and purchased the project in an approximately US $75 million transaction last year. PowerLight, now a subsidiary of SunPower, 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. Via: Reuters and Inside Green Tech
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