Cavar onshore wind farm complex

Iberdrola, together with Caja Rural de Navarra, has begun operating a new renewable facility: the Cavar complex. Its installed capacity of 111 megawatts (MW) makes it the company's largest wind farm commissioned in Spain since 2012, which is already pumping its first clean energy into the grid.

The four onshore wind farms making up the Cavar complex are located in the municipalities of Cadreita and Valtierra and have a total of thirty-two SG 3.4-132 turbines, each with a power of 3.4 MW, the largest used on an onshore wind farm in Spain to date. With blades measuring 64.5 m and a rotor diameter of 132 m, this is the ideal model for sites with medium and high winds.

The construction of the park has been completed in 12 months and has involved the creation of up to 200 jobs. It has also generated over €80 million worth procurement from suppliers, many of which are based in the nearby towns and surrounding area. Practically all of the civil work and the components used to build the wind turbines — towers, blades, nacelles, generators and multipliers — were manufactured in Navarre, Asturias, Cantabria, Soria and Burgos, all in northern Spain.

This wind farm complex will generate enough energy to power 46,500 households per year — around 25% of the population of Pamplona — and, because this is renewable energy, it will prevent emissions of 84,000 tonnes of CO₂ every year.

Furthermore, in order to protect the surrounding biodiversity, various birdlife monitoring actions are being carried out, such as detailed monitoring of adult Egyptian vulture specimens, both in the vicinity and in their migration.

Cavar is also the first wind project Iberdrola has developed in Europe with the aim of selling part of the energy to companies through long-term power purchase agreements (PPA).

The company has signed a PPA with Nike to supply 40 MW of clean energy to the sports firm's facilities in Europe. It is the third agreement of this type that the Iberdrola Group has signed with Nike External link, opens in new window., following the two it already has in the United States. Once the Cavar wind farm complex has been built, Nike will receive —on both sides of the Atlantic— a total of 209 MW of renewable energy belonging to Iberdrola.

Besides this, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has assisted this project via a Green Loan — the features of which are fully in line with the requirements set out in its Climate Awareness Bonds External link, opens in new window. program — which has provided 50 million euros in financing to Renovables de la Ribera, a 50-50 joint venture between Iberdrola and Caja Rural de Navarra to build this new renewable energy project.