In Spain, Cobra IS completed construction of three solar PV power plants for Portuguese oil company Galp Ictio Toledo (50 MW), Ahin Solar (16 MW) and Almaraz (50 MW) and began building Enel Green Power’s Balbona plant in Jumilla, Murcia (146 MW). It handed over several transmission lines and a substation for the Canteras I and II wind farms operated by Repsol Renovables (approximately 50 MW each) in the province of Zaragoza, and continued construction of the reversible (pump-turbine) hydroelectric plant in Salto de Chira to step up integration of renewable energies on Gran Canaria.
Elsewhere in Europe, Cobra IS completed the civil engineering and mechanical works on the 800 MW Luminus combined-cycle plant for EDF in Seraing, Belgium, and began building the Poolbeg open-cycle electric power plant near the port of Dublin, Ireland, designed to back up the electricity grid during peak times and, as such, support the development of renewable energies in the country. In Germany, Cobra IS is working in a consortium with Sener to develop the country’s first regasification terminal (10,000 million cu. metres of capacity per year), and will deploy the mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, control and automation systems for the Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link between the German and Danish coasts, following VINCI Construction’s civil engineering works on the immersed tunnel. In large offshore energy projects, in a consortium with Siemens Energy, Cobra IS subsidiary Dragados Offshore continued, began and won the construction of nine high-voltage direct current (HVDC) converter platforms linked to wind farms in the North Sea BorWin5 (900 MW, see Close-up), LanWin2, LanWin4 and BalWin3 (900 MW each) for TenneT; BorWin4 and DolWin4 (900 MW each), as well as BalWin1 and BalWin2 (2 GW each) for Amprion Offshore and was awarded a contract for a ninth platform, LanWin3 (2 GW), by 50Hertz. Combined, these projects will generate workload for the Puerto Real and Algeciras construction yards until 2031.
In Brazil, Cobra IS is a major player in electrical infrastructure and operates under two types of contracts. Under design-build contracts, its subsidiaries continued construction of around 1,700 km of high-voltage power lines and associated substations in the state of Minas Gerais, for national operator Aneel, and commissioned power lines and transformer stations to transport electricity from solar PV plants for Atlas Renewable Energy and Engie Energia. Under public-private partnership (PPP) contracts, which are increasingly used in Brazil to fund the development of all types of infrastructure, Cobra IS completed construction of two power lines Pampa (326 km, one transformer substation) and Dunas (541 km, three transformer substations) and began building the Verde line (1,270 km) and Buriti line (350 km). Also under a PPP contract, the company is extending and operating the drinking water and sewerage systems for 27 cities in the Zona da Mata metropolitan area, in the state of Alagoas. Elsewhere in Latin America, Cobra IS completed construction of a solar PV plant in Chiriquí (40 MW), Panama.
Large EPC projects on other continents in 2024 included a natural gas cooling system for a Sonatrach pipeline in Algeria; eight storage facilities for the Morinomiyako biomass power plant (75 MW) in Japan; the Nemmeli desalination plant, with capacity to produce 150,000 cu. metres of drinking water a day, in India; and four turbines with total capacity of 1,100 MW for the Talimarjan combined-cycle plant in Uzbekistan. In Australia, under a 35-year PPP contract, Cobra IS began the engineering phase for the development of electrical infrastructure in one of the first renewable energy zones in New South Wales (500 kV and 330 kV lines, including transformer substations and connections to solar and wind farms), which will supply power to more than 2.7 million people in the Orana region. In Pakistan and Tajikistan, Cobra IS completed construction of two electrical substations.
Through its experience with large EPC projects, Cobra IS has amassed specific expertise in developing and financing renewable energy assets in the upstream stage, and in operating the facilities and marketing the produced energy on the downstream end, thus covering the entire value chain. Its portfolio of energy assets, mainly consisting of photovoltaic power plants, complements the transmission lines in its PPP contracts. At the end of 2024, these solar farms’ total capacity amounted to 3.5 GW, including 0.6 GW in operation the Belmonte plant in Brazil and 2.9 GW under construction, principally in Spain (21 plants, 1.2 GW in total), Brazil (Mundo Novo, Raios do Parnaíba and Cristino Castro, 1.4 GW in total) and the United States (Barrett and Bynum in Texas, approximately 250 MW, for which Google has signed a 10-year power purchase agreement with Cobra IS).
Operations in the development and preliminary study phase at end-2024 added up to a portfolio of approximately 13 GW, and consisted of solar PV and onshore wind farms at various stages of maturity in Spain, Portugal, Poland, the United States, Australia, Latin America and South Africa.
