Bloomberg reported last week that a number of solar developers in Spain have applied for permits to connect to the country’s electric grid and sell solar power at market prices. Taken together the permit requests total 37,5 gigawatts (GW = 1,000 megawatts).  Clearly, not all of these proposed facilities will get built.  To put it into context, Spain has about 4.2 GW of installed solar capacity at present (representing almost 10% of the country’s peak power generating capability).  If even a fraction of these plants were to be built, it would crush the market and bankrupt the developers.  However, if the amount is limited, the first few actors are likely to see a profit.

The proposed installations are enormous – the largest eyed for Europe to date, ranging from 150 to 500 MW – with costs coming in as low as $.073 to .079 (.055 to .060 Euros) per kilowatt-hour.  These plants compare in size to the 290 MW NRG/First Solar Agua Caliente facility in Arizona, and Exelon‘s 230 MW Antelope Valley project in Southern California, but they are considerably less expensive.

via Solar Grid Parity Comes to Spain – Forbes.