Massive Solar PV Farm Opens in Germany

A 78 MW part of a 148 MW photovoltaic solar farm was completed on September 24. The project was developed by Saferay, which is based in Berlin, while the plant occupies a former open pit mining area near Senftenberg in Eastern Germany.

According to a Global Solar Technology magazine, the 78 MW plant took three months to complete and will supply 25,000 households with electricity. It features 330,000 crystalline solar modules and 62 central inverter stations.

The plant is annexed to another 70 MW plant that shares a common infrastructure with Saferay’s plant and a 18 MW plant, which was completed last year.

Three German banks invested €150 million (US$202.5 million) in the project. “Utility scale PV projects like this one play an important role in securing Germany’s energy supply and speed up the country’s transformation to renewable energies”, said Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Matthias Platzeck.

Saferay states on its website that its mission is “to generate solar PV power at competitive price levels without subsidies or feed-in tariffs, and accelerate the exit from fossil or nuclear energy.”

The company said the project shows how fast large-scale photovoltaic systems can be built and despite being located in a place that is not always sunny it can generate cheaper power than wind.

Saferay also stressed its concerns with preserving habitat around the farm and took care to leave large areas of land between installations so that birds and other animals would not be affected.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.