PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

BP Solar plans 6 MW PV power plant

On the site of a former Addinol oil refinery in Krumpa, Germany, a division of Deutsche BP AG in Hamburg plans to build a 6 MW PV power plant.

	© Lausitzer und Mitteldeutsche Berbau- Verwaltungs- gesellschaft mbH
BP Solar wants to build a 6 MW PV power plant on the old Addinol refinery site – pictured here in the foreground. In the background, pits from the Mücheln lignite coals mines, which have been flooded since 2003.

Barbara Rudek, BP press officer, announced that the company would reveal details regarding technological issues, costs, and financing at the end of February. Steffen Eichner, the deputy district administrator, is pleased with the plans: »After 300 years of lignite coal mining, finally an environmentally-friendly energy will be produced in the region.« Eichner's office already approved a 4 MW system at the end of November. At the start of January, BP Solar applied for permission to expand the system to 6 MW. »In our opinion, nothing should stand in their way,« says Eichner. By July, electricity from the system will begin feeding into Envia Mitteldeutsche Energie AG's grid – at least, that's the plan.

The future PV power plant will be located on the southern edge of Geiseltal valley, where in the near future, a 19 km² sea will appear due to flooding of the coal mining area. »We've supported the idea of a PV power plant on the Addinol site since the middle of the 1990s,« reports Jürgen Umlauf, chairperson for the Saxony-Anhalt section of the German Solar Energy Society (DGS). Although Umlauf has already introduced the project at a number of exhibitions and conferences, BP has only recently begun to put its back into the project. Umlauf hopes that after the project is complete, DGS can use the system for demonstration purposes.