Solar Power Plant One (Algeria)

Sponsor: Abener Energía, S.A.
Activity: Construction, operation and maintenance of a solar thermal plant
Industry: Energy
Product: Equity
Total investment: 316 million euros
Resources: FIEX

According to the 2005-2015 ten-year plan published by its Commission de Régulation de l’Électricité et du Gaz (Electricity and Gas Regulatory Commission), Algeria is expecting energy demand to grow at a rate of 6-7 % in that time frame. On this assumption, power demand would rise from 800 kWh per capita in 2006 to 1,300 kWh per capita in 2015.

Unsurprisingly, then, attracting private investment in energy infrastructure has become one of the present Algerian Government’s priorities. This, along with other factors such as the geographic proximity between Spain and Algeria, the rise in trade between the two countries and Algeria’s status as a target country under the Comprehensive Market Development Plan designed by the Spanish Secretariat of State for Trade, has encouraged a significant number of Spanish companies to undertake business ventures in that African country.

The project submitted to COFIDES by ABENER (an ABENGOA biofuel and solar thermal subsidiary) under the title Hassi R’Mel Gas-Solar Hybrid Project consists in building, commissioning, operating and maintaining a hybrid solar-gas electric power plant with a total installed capacity of 150 MW, 25 MW of which are to be produced with solar power.

With an estimated 33-month construction period, a 25- year service life and a total estimated investment of nearly 316 million euros, the project, located on a site bordering the Sahara Desert, is based on conventional combined cycle technology, consisting in one steam and two natural gas turbines. In addition, in this hybrid station solar thermal energy is collected by parabolic troughs with a total useful reflective area of 180,000 m2 and delivered to the steam turbine, where it is transformed into electric power. The Hassi R’Mel project pioneers the use of this technology in Algeria, and is one of the first to implement it world-wide. It is, moreover, eligible for Clean Development Mechanism status under the Kyoto Protocol.

The corporate structure for the project is embodied in Solar Power Plant One, a company in which ABENER holds 51 % of the share capital. COFIDES’ 9.5 millioneuro stake, accounting for 15 % of the shareholdings, was drawn from FIEX resources. The rest of Solar Power Plant One’s share capital is held by two Algerian public companies, NEAL (20 %) and SONATRACH (14 %). The latter is also the company that will be buying the power produced by Solar Power Plant One.

ABENER, chartered in 1994, is owned by ABEINSA, in turn the head of ABENGOA’s industrial engineering and construction business group. ABENER has experience in solar thermal plant planning, building, operation and maintenance, with stations in Seville and Ain Beni Mathar, Morocco. The latter is the largest ISCC (Integrated Solar Combined Cycle) solar thermal plant in the world.