General Motors kicks off solar power initiative in Spain

By Richard Milne in Milan and Mark Mulligan in Madrid
Published: July 8 2008 03:00

General Motors is to build the world's largest rooftop solar power station at its largest European factory, and is considering similar projects for its other 19 plants across the continent.
The US carmaker will announce today that its Zaragoza factory in Spain, which produces about 500,000 cars a year, will be covered by 183,000 square metres of solar panels.
The investment is worth about €50m ($78.5m) and should provide the equivalent of about a quarter of the factory's power needs at peak times.
GM is working with France's Veolia Environnement and Clairvoyant Energy of the US on the 10MW project and some of the electricity generated will be sold back into the local power grid. GM is likely to make its Russian factory in St Petersburg the next to have such solar panels because of the long daylight hours and it will then evaluate whether to expand the scheme to its other 10 manufacturing and eight component factories across Europe.
The solar project comes amid huge difficulties for GM in the US market, where it is losing money and shedding jobs, meaning it is becoming more reliant on its profitable international activities in regions such as Asia, Russia and Latin America.
It also underlines GM's attempts to cast off its reputation as an environmental laggard after stopping the development of an electric car in the 1990s. It is now making the introduction of a new electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, its "number one priority" and Carl-Peter Foster, the head of GM Europe, will today say the Zaragoza project is part of GM's commitment to greater sustainability.
GM is also involved with Gazprom, the Russian energy group, in trying to set up an alternative infrastructure in Russia for low-emission cars.
In September, the Spanish government is set to ann-ounce its latest pricing regime for generation from renewable sources. Some say it could cut by as much as 30 per cent the current price support to large-scale solar generators, in a move to deter speculators.
However, the government is expected to maintain generous feed-in prices - currently worth about €0.45 per KW hour - for companies and individuals who generate electricity from solar panels on the outside of buildings.
In this way, it hopes to move electricity production from large, isolated solar parks to localised generation units. As the distance between generation source and end-users diminishes, so, too, does waste.
From 44MW of installed capacity at the end of 2005, Spain currently boasts about 800MW of photovoltaic generation, well above original government targets for this year.
Installation has already begun in Zaragoza of the 85,000 lightweight solar modules that are needed to cover more than half of the total roof area of the factory in panels.
The power station, which will be owned and operated by a joint venture comprising Veolia, Clairvoyant and the regional government of Aragon, will sell energy back to the grid equivalent to the need of 4,600 households.
That means the investment should deliver returns in eight to 10 years.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008