Neoen inaugurates Portugal's largest solar park

Neoen has inaugurated the largest solar park in Portugal and the fourth1 largest amongst Neoen’s assets in operation. With a capacity of 272 MWp, the Portuguese park is composed of two contiguous solar farms, Rio Maior Solar Farm (204 MWp) and Torre Bela Solar Farm (68 MWp), both fully owned by Neoen. It is located in the municipality of Azambuja, 70 km north of Lisbon and is connected to the REN substation, in Rio Maior, via a 400 kV overhead line.

The solar park started injecting electricity into the grid at the end of 2024 and is now fully operational. Its annual production will reach over 500 GWh of green energy, which corresponds to the consumption of 110,000 homes. Some 80% of the renewable energy produced will be purchased by the Portuguese State, under two 15-year power purchase agreements (PPA) awarded under the 2019 renewable capacity auction. The remaining energy and certificates of origin are being sold on the electricity market.

The solar park was built in plots, each with an average size of 20 hectares, separated by green corridors to improve connections between almost 200 hectares of biodiversity protection areas. Over 6,000 cork oaks, a protected tree species in Portugal, have been maintained in these protected spaces. A screen of trees and shrubs shields the panels from view, so that the solar farms blend in with the surrounding landscape. The Rio Maior and Torre Bela solar plants were developed within the walled perimeter of the Herdade da Torre Bela, a property with diverse uses that includes various agricultural and livestock activities. The Herdade da Torre Bela is part of the land owned by Sociedade Agrícola da Quinta do Convento da Visitação, Sag, Lda. The solar assets were built on a leased area of this estate, while the use of the remaining land is under the sole management of the property owners.

Including Rio Maior and Torre Bela solar farms, Neoen has 326 MWp of capacity in operation or under construction in Portugal. Other assets include Coruche Solar Farm (8.8 MWp) and Seixal Solar Farm (2.2 MWp), both in operation, and Foral Solar Farm (43 MWp), currently under construction.

In addition, Neoen has a large and diversified pipeline of more than 600 MW of projects under development in Portugal, encompassing all three technologies: solar, wind and storage with several hundred megawatts of large-scale battery projects. In particular, Neoen is actively working on adding a wind farm but also a large battery at Rio Maior which is a strategic point in the network for such an asset.

www.neoen.com