Highlights
- Bodegas y Viñedos Fontana, located in the province of Cuenca (Castilla-La Mancha), is a specialist family winemaker with over thirty years in the sector.
- The facility has a total installed capacity of 230 kWp and has been installed on land on the property, covering an area of de 1,116 m2.
- This project will prevent the emission of 103 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, equivalent to the absorption capacity of 9,733 trees per year.
Bodegas y Viñedos Fontana, a family business with more than three decades of experience and tradition in the wine sector, has started the process of generating its own electricity in tandem with Endesa X, Endesa's energy services subsidiary. By building a solar plant on its land in the province of Cuenca (Castilla-La Mancha), Bodegas Fontana will be able to start producing a third of its wines with solar energy, since the characteristics of the facility will enable the business to meet 27% of its energy needs.
The solar photovoltaic facility designed and built by Endesa X has a total installed capacity of 230 kWp and comprises 427 540-W photovoltaic modules, which have been installed on land covering an area of 1,116 m2. Thanks to this facility, Bodegas Fontana will reduce its carbon footprint by 103 tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to the absorption capacity of 9,733 trees/year.
With this commitment to self-consumption, Bodegas Fontana moves beyond the oenological innovation that characterises the quality of its wines, obtained from vineyards that are spread over 500 hectares in the provinces of Cuenca and Toledo. More specifically, these vineyards are located in the municipalities of Fuente de Pedro Naharro, Horcajo de Santiago and Tarancón in Cuenca, and Cabezamesada and Corral de Almaguer in Toledo.
According to Ramiz Mokbel, Sales Manager Central Area and Portugal at Endesa X, "this installation further underlines our commitment to helping our customers to achieve their emissions reduction goals, in this instance assisting Bodegas Fontana with a renewable generation solution for self-consumption that will meet a third of its demand, complemented by our advanced Energy Management System (SGE), which will facilitate decision-making by providing production and consumption data, among many other features". He adds, "this represents a step further in the common goal of making our business fabric carbon neutral, using solutions that promote decarbonisation through electrification and digitalisation".
According to Jesús Cantarero, the owner of Bodegas Fontana, "rather than an option, sustainable management is an obligation on the part of our winery, and what makes it really viable is that we are completely convinced that the pathway to follow is towards the broadest spectrum of sustainability and respect for the environment. Process quality is crucial in our daily work, and the solar photovoltaic plant represents a further step in this regard".
Image of the solar plant built for Bodegas Fontana, on land in the province of Cuenca
Smart monitoring
The self-consumption project undertaken for Bodegas Fontana also includes Endesa X's Energy Management Service (EMS), which will enable it to monitor the energy produced by the photovoltaic installations, the energy self-consumed and the savings produced in a simple way once they are in operation. This service also lets users view their real-time consumption, detect anomalies, cost overruns or deviations, study their causes and, with this information, design the necessary measures to resolve them, resulting in direct savings. The EMS does not only provide the client with data and who then has to interpret it, it also carries out an analysis that enables informed decisions to be taken.
Endesa X also offers companies comprehensive advice throughout the process for managing existing support for self-consumption installations, which result in a significant reduction of the panel installation costs, making the return on the investment even more attractive. Endesa X manages these grants for its customers, as well as providing them with the advice they need to choose the best photovoltaic installation option.
The sun, a resource for Castilla-La Mancha
The construction of a solar photovoltaic plant for Bodegas Fontana means Endesa X has now carried our eight installations in Castilla-La Mancha. This is because this region enjoys many hours of sunshine, a resource that makes it very attractive for companies and in particular for the food industry, the main economic engine of the area, including the wine and meat segments.
Over 17 MW for self-consumption have already been installed in the region, taking advantage of extensive tracts of land and large warehouses with roofs on which solar panels can be located. In the province of Cuenca, where the solar plant for Bodegas Fontana has been built, there are more than 2,700 hours of sunshine per year.
About Endesa
Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. The company is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. Endesa operates an end-to-end electricity generation, distribution and marketing business. Through Endesa X, it also offers value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy usage in homes, companies, industries and Public Administrations. It is also the leading operator of charging stations in Spain through Endesa X Way, a business line dedicated entirely to electric mobility. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power España, the digitalisation of grids through e-distribution, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,260 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.
Endesa X is Endesa's business line dedicated to energy efficiency. Endesa X is a division of Enel X Global Retail and a leader in the development of innovative solutions in support of energy transition. It is aimed at consumers, companies and administrations, providing a modular and integrated offer based on their needs and promoting the electrification of energy uses and digitalisation as motors driving the creation of new value. Endesa X's ecosystem of solutions includes products and services for the optimisation and self-generation of electricity and premium energy efficiency solutions, with the aim of helping customers to create their energy roadmap. Globally, Enel X Global Retail manages demand response services, with 8.1 GW of total capacity. It has installed more than 3 million street lighting points worldwide and provides energy services to 67 million residential customers on a daily basis.
About Bodegas Fontana
Bodegas Fontana has a long-standing presence in the wine sector, where we have always endeavoured to do things well and offer the very highest quality.
To this end, the technical team has been given very clear guidance by the property, ensuring its achievement. It was necessary to lead the company to a distinctly sustainable management model, including, of course, the three pillars of sustainability: economic, social and environmental.
Bodegas y Viñedos Fontana shares society's very evident concern for the environment and is aware that commitment to nature had to be central to our professional ethics, adopting as the central axis of our business strategy the optimisation of its resources and the reduction of both waste generated and the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
This underlines the credibility and seriousness of a winemaker aligned with reality, showing respect for the environment, for the people who form part of our team and for each and every supplier and customer, accepting our share of responsibility and putting forward plans to reduce and optimise the impacts stemming from our activity, all in the interest of the circular economy and of achieving the SDGs, taking into account that the waste of one company can be the resource of another.
