Solar leaders • Forum

The elimination of the sun tax in 2013 was useful to the sector’s long-term growth, as was being forced to deal with stiff competition.

Alberto Pérez Echeverría CEO, STI NORLAND

STI NORLAND IS A WORLDWIDE LEADER

IN the design, supply, installation, and commission of fixed solar structures and trackers. Our initial business was the construction of steel structures for warehouses, shopping malls, and the like. In 1998, we started supplying components of solar structures. During the next 10 years, STI Norland was frequently supplying the largest PV projects in the market. In 2008, we supplied components for that time’s largest solar plant in the world, a 46-MW project in Portugal. This was a milestone for the company because with this we opened our first factory to supply key components for solar trackers: the actuators, which are designed and patented by STI Norland. Having our own factory in Europe gave us a competitive advantage in terms of price. Between 2012 and 2019, we have been commercializing both trackers and fixed structures, and we have opened subsidiaries all over the world: Brazil, Chile, India, Israel, Mexico, and South Africa. One of STI Norland’s most important milestone was in 2017, when we launched a dual-row tracker.

Iñigo Viani, HEAD OF EUROPE, TRINA SOLAR ISBU

TRINA STARTED ITS PATH 20 YEARS AGO and has since become one of the leading industrial players within this industry, doing very well in this very changing market. In recent years, the company decided to enhance its worth by moving deeper into the value chain. The company chiefly does two things. First, it manufactures high-quality modules, solar trackers, and energy storage. In addition, some years ago it entered the downstream business. Today, we are one of the main solar development platforms in the world, and our business is to develop and structure projects such as financing and energy sale strategy before extracting value from a turnkey project we provide to our end customers. However, we are not an independent power producer, even though we may take equity for a time if it provides value to the project. Spain is perhaps the leading country in Europe in developing a new, unsubsidized business model.

Manuel García CEO, GREENALIA

SINCE ITS CREATION IN GALICIA, the company has developed the most in forestry. We later started to vertically integrate products of higher added value, like the energy sector, with the generation of thermal energy, biofuels, and electricity production with biomass. As a result of getting into the world of bioeconomy, bioenergy, and the generation of energy, we expanded into other renewable technologies such as wind and photovoltaic energy. It is the second to be built, but has the same power as the first in Huelva. There are several types of biomass: agricultural, forestry, and others. Within this forestry context, the plant is the largest in southern Europe and second largest by power. The plant construction is going well, and 80% of the investment has been executed, i.e. more than EUR100 of EUR135 million. The idea is to start running tests by the end of 2019. By March 27, 2020, the deadline to collect the compensation, we will have connected it to the network and started selling its energy.