Opening the world's largest solar power plant

Portugal has just launched the world's most powerful solar power plant. The plant includes solar panels spanning about 150 hectares in Europe's hottest sunny area.

The factory was built in the Alentejo area - 200 km south of Lisbon.

Solar power plant in Portugal (Photo: AFP)

Portugal has built this factory with three purposes: to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs for the land where the income of people mainly comes from olive tree planting.

Factory officials said each amount of electricity produced by the factory could supply 8,000 households. According to calculations, to have the same amount of electricity but by using gas, about 30,000 tons of greenhouse gases will be emitted each year.

In recent years, Portugal has paid great attention to exploiting clean energy sources. Under the plan, within the next 5 years, Portugal will invest about 10 billion USD in developing solar energy, wind energy and wave energy. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates once stated that he wanted in 2010 that 45% of the energy consumed in Portugal was derived from clean energy.

DKKL