Iberdrola to invest in the face of COVID-19

Spanish utilities company Iberdrola has promised to inject €10 billion into the country’s economy, announcing plans to deliver a number of solar projects this year.

At its first ever virtual annual general meeting, Iberdrola’s CEO, Ignacio Galán, said the Bilbao-based company would invest the money over the course of 2020 and across the entire business, to boost economic confidence and prevent job losses in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.

He said, “We share with you the certainty that speeding up investments, once these exceptional circumstances come to an end, is the best – I would venture to say the only – way to get through this situation of crisis and uncertainty,”

With Spain in lockdown, Iberdrola has had to call a temporary halt construction work on its solar and wind projects in the country.

The company has PV (photovoltaic) projects of 590MWp and 328MW under construction in Spain’s Extremadura region, as well as a 149MW project in Portugal, which is yet to break ground.

In 2019, the utility enjoyed a rise in net profit, to €3.4 billion, with almost half of its spend being on renewable energy projects. Worldwide, Iberdrola’s commissioned renewable energy assets totalled just short of 32GW for the year.

The company said it currently has a 9GW backlog of renewable projects, adding that, regardless of the coronavirus crisis and governmental measures to contain it, it expects to commission at least half of these projects before the end of the year.