CSP World

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted Spanish construction and services company ACS a EUR 98 million loan to support its research, development and innovation activities. EIB Vice-President Magdalena Álvarez Arza and ACS’s CEO Florentino Pérez signed the finance contract on Friday 7 June.

According to EIB, part of this loan will be aimed to Concentrated Solar Power technology researches, particularly to improve energy storage systems capacity and energy efficiency conversion.

ACS has a long track-record in the CSP sector through its subsidiary Cobra, which has been involved in many of the currently operating CSP plants in Spain. In fact, Cobra was part of the consortium that built the first parabolic trough plant in Spain, Andasol 1, a plant that set a milestone with its seven hours capacity of energy storage.

The investment period will run until 2015 and the RDI will be carried out at the company’s research centres in Spain.

ACS is Spain’s biggest infrastructure corporate and has a consolidated leadership position in the construction of large-scale public infrastructure worldwide. The EIB loan will help to enhance the company’s knowledge and technological know-how by providing it with long-term funds.

The investments financed by this loan meet the priority EIB and EU objectives of fostering the knowledge economy by improving companies’ technological capacity; ensuring a sustainable, competitive and secure energy supply; and promoting sustainable transport.