PHOTON International The Photovoltaic Magazine

New 10 MW solar park completely on line in Germany

Jochen Kleimaier, general manager of K & S Consulting GmbH & Co. KG, used few words to describe the status of what is currently the largest project for his Regensburg, Germany-based planning company: »It's all on the grid!«

	© PowerLight Corporation
PowerLight's one-axis tracking system – pictured here in the hamlet in Minihof near Dietersburg, Bavaria – is designed for utility-scale PV plants.

In December, a ground-mounted 6.3 MW system on an undeveloped area in Mühlhausen went on line, completing the Bavaria Solar Park. Since September, two other large-scale systems with 1.9 MW each in the Bavarian municipalities Günching and Dietersburg have been feeding electricity into the grid. In all, the systems have a combined power of 10.1 MW.

Investment in the project totals €49.5 million ($65.8 million). Frankfurt-based Deutsche Structured Finance is responsible for the financing. The company set up a closed fund (Solar Energy Fund Bavaria) with €12.8 million ($17 million) limited liability capital with minimum shares of €10,000 ($13,300). K & S' plan for a 10 MW solar park spread out over, originally, seven locations was targeted for completion much earlier: back in April 2003 K & S, together with Freiburg-based S.A.G. Solarstrom AG, announced plans to kick off the solar park with a system in Günching (see PI 4/2003, p. 9).

	© PowerLight Corporation
Bavaria Solar Park: The 1.9 MW system in Günching is one of three PV systems with a total of 10.1 MW.

But nothing came of it. Later, the Californian company PowerLight Corporation joined the project instead of S.A.G. (see PI 4/2004, p. 12). Now the US company is primarily responsible for development and technical realization of the entire project. PowerLight also has provided its single-axis PowerTracker tracking system, which has been tested in many spots in the US and now enjoys its European premiere in Bavaria. In all, 57,680 monocrystalline Sharp modules with 175 W each are mounted on the PowerTracker. The modules are connected to the utility Eon's grid with Sinvert-Solar inverters from Siemens: both a 1,020 kVA device and a 680 kVA are used for each of the two 1.9 MW systems, while four 1,020 kVA units and a 600 kVA inverter are applied for the 6.3 MW system in Mühlhausen.