It has teamed up with Portuguese energy leader EDP to develop a 1.3 MW photovoltaic power plant on a surface area of 15,000 square metres.
- The plant covers 20% of the centre's consumption, reduces the energy bill and avoids the emission of 390 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- The investment is in line with Grupo Fertiberia's NET Zero strategy, with which it plans to fully decarbonise its operations by 2035.
Grupo Fertiberia, European leader in the design, production and distribution of plant nutrition solutions, is making progress in its plan to reduce its net emissions to zero by 2035. The company is promoting the development of a set of solar parks on the perimeter of its industrial centres to cover part of its electricity consumption. With this objective in mind, it has already taken the first step at its Lavradio facilities, where it has just inaugurated a photovoltaic plant that will be able to generate 20% of this industrial centre's consumption from entirely renewable sources.
This plant occupies a surface area of 15,000 square metres and has 2,378 panels with a total power of 1.3 MW. For the construction and operation of the plant, ADP Fertilizantes has relied on the Portuguese energy leader EDP. Thanks to this partnership, this solar park has been equipped with the most efficient components on the market in order to ensure a maximum energy yield.
The self-consumption plant avoids the emission of 390 tonnes of CO2 per year, reduces the electricity bill by 23% and makes the long-term energy costs of the industrial centre more predictable.
Grupo Fertiberia is the first company in the plant nutrition sector to commit to fully decarbonise its operations over the next decade through the Net Zero plan. The company has 14 plants in Spain, Portugal and France, 1,600 employees and a logistics network that reaches a thousand customers in eighty countries. The first pillar to reduce emissions from its industrial base to zero is to lead the development of green hydrogen and ammonia in Europe (produced from renewable energies), which enables the production of low-carbon fertilisers, which in turn decarbonise the agricultural sector.
The company has already started up Europe's first large-scale green ammonia and fertiliser plant in Puertollano, where it produces a 100% sustainable fertiliser from green hydrogen. This is the Impact Zero line, the world's first fertilisers produced from renewable hydrogen, which are also produced at the Alverca plant in Portugal.
The Group also has plans for the rest of its production centres, which participate in the largest consortia associated with the development of green hydrogen in the Iberian Peninsula, and is developing two new construction projects in Sweden and Norway.
In parallel to green hydrogen, the company is analysing all its options to increase efficiency and energy consumption from 100% renewable sources for all its facilities. "We are going to optimise the surface area of our industrial centres to increase our self-consumption capacities," says Javier Goñi, CEO of Grupo Fertiberia. The Lavradio plant was the first investment in this line, and "it is a project with a special value, as it allows us to generate an experience that can be transferred to the rest of the company's facilities and achieve the most optimal solutions”, says Goñi.
