Neoen inaugurates Portugal’s largest solar park

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 ha., separated by green corridors to improve connections between almost 200 ha. of biodiversity protection areas. Over 6000 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.

Since 2017, Neoen has been a pioneer and a global leader in battery storage and has strong expertise, with approximately 400 MW of batteries in Europe and nearly 1 GW of operating grid-forming batteries in Australia. Approved by utilities, they provide inertia services and stabilise grids, features that are critical when operating a network with a high share of renewables, as in Portugal.

Matilde Azevedo, Head of Business Development at Neoen Portugal, commented: “It is with great pride that we are inaugurating today the largest solar park in the country. We are particularly thankful to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy, the Direção-Geral de Energia e Geologia (DGEG), the Agencia Portuguesa do Ambiente (APA), REN, the municipality of Azambuja, and the local communities for their support in bringing the solar farms of Rio Maior and Torre Bela to fruition. Over the past few years, we have developed a significant pipeline of new projects in Portugal – not only in solar, but also in wind and battery storage – and we have strong ambitions to actively support the country’s bold renewable energy goals.”

Xavier Barbaro, Group CEO of Neoen, concluded: “I would like to congratulate our team in Portugal on this major achievement, which also marks Neoen’s 15^th anniversary in the country. We are determined to deepen our engagement and to turn Rio Maior into a true Green Power Hub. We are eager to share our expertise in battery storage to strengthen the resilience of the Portuguese grid, just as we have successfully done in other countries: more than ever, Neoen strives to deliver innovative solutions to meet today’s challenges – in Portugal and around the world.”

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