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Phase One of 40 MW German Solar Park Begun

February 23, 2007 | 30 Comments

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Bolanden, Germany [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Construction on a 40 megawatt (MW) solar generation power plant is under way at a former military base in the Saxon region of Germany. The total surface area of the planned photovoltaic (PV) installation? It's comparable to about 200 soccer fields, said Matthias Willenbacher, cofounder and CEO of the juwi group.

"Construction of the world's biggest plant of this kind is a real challenge for a medium-sized enterprise like the juwi group. In Brandis we're building on an area of more than a million square meters. By contrast, most house roofs, for example, comprise only 40 to 50 square meters."

-- Matthias Willenbacher, juwi group, CEO

The "Waldpolenz" solar park -- which is being developed by the juwi group in the township of Brandis -- will be comprised of approximately 550,000 First Solar thin-film modules. The direct current produced in the solar modules will be converted into alternating current and fed completely into the power grid.

Once completed in 2009, the project will be one of the largest photovoltaic projects ever constructed. Currently the biggest PV plant in the world has an output capacity of around 12 megawatts.

"Large-scale projects such as these make a huge contribution to making solar electricity more competitive," said Willenbacher. "No other solar power plant in the world is as big and as cost-effective as the juwi project in Brandis."

With a specific price of approximately Euro 3,250 per kilowatt [U.S. $4,226], the power plant is expected to be around 20%-40% cheaper than the going German market price. In addition, after just a year in operation, the "Waldpolenz" will have produced the energy needed to build it.

However, the logistical tasks of managing a Euro 130 million project [U.S. $171 million] -- from preparing the land, through buying the components to connecting to the grid -- can't be compared with fitting a solar array on a family home.

"Construction of the world's biggest plant of this kind is a real challenge for a medium-sized enterprise like the juwi group," noted Willenbacher. "In Brandis we're building on an area of more than a million square meters. By contrast, most house roofs, for example, comprise only 40 to 50 square meters."

Construction has already begun at the site on a fence to protect the area, which measures approximately one kilometre wide by two kilometres long. The next step in development will be driving in the piles of the mounting frames in March, mounting the frames to hold the solar modules in early April, and finally laying the modules into the frame around the middle of April.

According to the company, the first part of the power plant will be ready to feed in electricity by the end of June. After operations begin, several juwi staff will be responsible for the management, servicing and maintenance of the installation.

The juwi solar GmbH (the company's solar division) will set up a base on the grounds in Brandis and is expected to steadily add personnel over the next few years.

Simultaneous to the development and licensing phases of the project, the juwi group along with the Sachsen LB Group -- a closed-end fund marketing and administration company within the Sachsen LB Group -- has assembled a professional equity capital and external financing scheme. The SachsenFonds GmbH will offer equity to interested investors in the form of closed end funds later this year.

Additional Information

Solar Energy

30 Reader Comments

Comment
1 of 30

philip-livingston-55590

February 23, 2007

Just a small correction for "Anonymous." The installation of this system will not directly effect scarce silicon supplies resultant of the silicon shortage, as First Solar's technology relies on Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin film technology.

There may be indirect economic effects due to CdTe being a market substitute for Si based modules, but the magnitude of this is anyones guess.

Comment
2 of 30

john-moran-59062

February 23, 2007

I think it is a beautiful testament to human ingenuity and much more beautiful than an open pit mine. Man capturing the energy we're surrounded with everyday, back in harmony with nature. God is truly within us.

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3 of 30

jim-berry-51310

February 23, 2007

Which is uglier by the mega watt, a wind farm or a solar farm?

I'll bet that solar farm is an eye sore.

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4 of 30

jesse-broehl-9395

February 23, 2007

I agree with Tripp. PV at this scale is silly and only the result of the super-high incentives. CSP is more cost-effective for utility-scale solar. If the incentives also apply for CSP, I'm not sure why more CSP plants are not going up. It might be that fact CSP plants take more time and effort to design, build and get running. Whereas, these PV plants just require putting in a ginormous order from the local PV manufacturers (German too, no surprise) and laying them out.

And what's with this unchallenged, unsubstantiated line about being 20-40% cheaper than market PV? That's either factoring in the savings from incentives (that everyone else gets) or it's just hogwash. There's no new snazzy approach or breakthrough PV that I can tell. The whole thing is just another multi-MW-sized waste of green tax revenue and silicon that could be used more cost effectively elsewhere. But GO GERMANY! At least some governments will bankroll solar at this level.

Comment
5 of 30

carolyn-luce-54460

February 23, 2007

Oops, I mean pages 9 and 19.

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carolyn-luce-54460

February 23, 2007

Frank, I thought so too, so I went to see if that is true. It seems it's not true.
From page 5, Section 8 and page 9, section 2, paragraph 1 of
http://www.solarpaces.org/EEG%20English.pdf ,
it seems to me that the feed-in tariff applies equally to "photovoltaic installations and installations for solar thermal electricity generation" (e.g. CSP).

Comment
7 of 30

carolyn-luce-54460

February 23, 2007

Why not do all three? Put a wind farm at the West, East and/or North boundaries of the PV farm, and put a geothermal plant underground? Then the PV, wind and geothermal plants could all share the same space and transmission lines. It's not a competition. One does not have to exclude the others. Diversify!

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frank-baumgardt-15272

February 23, 2007

Tripp,

I don't think the Euro 0.54/kWh subsidy applies to CSP produced energy.

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9 of 30

draq-wraith-37631

February 23, 2007

Tripp because the lenses would have to be cleaned periodically. They are looking at low to no maintenance ways to do this.

My problem with it is in this same area they could have done a wind farm and a geothermal energy power plant too.
The sun isn't always shining, wind isn't always blowing. But the earth can be a source of heat and this plant can be done right. They could have also in this same area made a Recycling center style power plant using trash to make gas to run their power plants. Oh well i guess at least they are doing something that produces zero carbon emissions other than the digging of the materials, production, delivery and installations.
Hope they do it right!

D~W

Comment
10 of 30

tripp-bishop-28613

February 23, 2007

Why are they doing PV instead of CSP? At the utility scale CSP seems vastly superior in terms of cost and has the added benefit of being dispatchable. I'm all for promoting PV but this seems pretty absurd to me.

Comment
11 of 30

pv-sales-in-ca-52346

February 24, 2007

One thing to keep in mind. Renewable electric generation is not a direct replacement to existing technology. Shifting bulk demand to day time hours and implementing storage system makes this completely viable. We are moving towards that.

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12 of 30

brian-julin-42934

February 24, 2007

Anon: I think the touted cost figure is based on comparing this, a thin film installation, with more traditional Si crystal installations. Just a guess. At least it's going to give the thin film market some extra purchase volume to grow with.

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13 of 30

adrian-akau-36758

February 24, 2007

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp

Geothermal wind and solar go together hand in hand,
All produce 'lectricity to be beneficially
Used by all with no pollutants given off.

Tramp, tramp, tramp the blades are turning solar is picking up the rays,
Geothermal brings the heat all the energy is sweet
Used by all with no pollutants given off.

adrianakau@aol.com

Comment
14 of 30

adrian-akau-36758

February 25, 2007

Neil. Renewables are not direct replacements for existing technology right now because wind and solar are intermittant. However, with the proper storage technology, they can come pretty close.

We should be able to employ hydro, refrigeration, deep caves for compressed air and other types of inventive methods to compensate for the down time so getting it close to existing technology is not an impossibility.
Even CSP plants could store heated oil to be used to convert water into steam in a secondary loop.

I think we have to consider the renewables as working synergestically. Working together should get better results than single technologies. Sites considered should be analyzed for all types of energy sources, including Geothermal. There are lots of possibilities; we have only scratched the surface.

adrianakau@aol.com

Comment
15 of 30

nick-panchev-60473

February 25, 2007

PV plants are not comparable with CSP plants, when exceed 30MWe.
Rign not, the cost of PV plants per MWe is $4.3M compared to CSP's at $3.5M pe MWe.

Germany in not in the Solar Power Prospects region, whereas Southern California (Norherly of Hwy 58 and Easterly of Hwy 395 region) is.

And yet they are implementing Solar, and due to lack of large land parcels they are utilizing the PV's.

Here in U.S. there is exuberant talk about Solar, with recently Solar Energy, Green Energy Renewable are reduced to and termed as "Mandated Energy", but hardly any action, except Nevada Solar, thanks to the Nevada's Gov. strimlining the process. Here in California, expect plenty of Lis Pendens, before any solar plant gets off-the-ground.

Comment
16 of 30

marc-perez-62086

February 26, 2007

3) Thin film... From a purely economic standpoint, thin films seem attractive at first. The problem is that they suffer from an exponentially worse degradation in efficiency when compared with their thicker counterparts. 4) Is it tracking? The article doesn't specify. But if not, thats shameful. At this scale it's much easier to incorporate at least 1-axis of tracking, see SERPA in Portugal, and Bavaria solarpark in GER.

Comment
17 of 30

marc-perez-62086

February 26, 2007

Technologies that harness the sun have a comparative advantage over other renewable technologies in that there is more available resource to harness-- and thus energy generation potential--than any other renewable technology. While I am all for the proliferation of PV's, I have several contentions with this project. 1) The proposed system is centralized--think: easy target. One of the (potentially) most beneficial aspects of solarPV is that it can be built and spread about existing infrastructure;ie distributed generation. 2) Panels are CdTe and not Si. Both Cd and Te are toxic, Cd is carcinogenic and both generate dangerous waste through the production process. They are both also not nearly as abundant as Si.

Comment
18 of 30

charlie-monk-62083

February 26, 2007

Like others I also wondered if the land could be used for anything else as well. Wind power would not be a good companion for this scheme since it would shade the panels except along the Northern edge, and for a wind farm this is not a large area anyway. Geothermal would be good, but there could be conflict for maintenance issues and it may not be such a good site for geothermal. Maybe they could just grow mushrooms in the shade underneath!
Looking at the main article, the reduced cost seems to be just from the large scale of the development, not from any new technology. PV gives a big advantage over a large CSP plant since it can be built and maintained on a modular scale, with each array separately contributing to the overall power, so there is no overarching machinery that governs the whole site, other than the grid connection, which is sufficiently cheap that it could incorporate suitable redundancy.

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19 of 30

robert-veach-61249

February 28, 2007

Please help me evaluate a new bright young company that wants to give a kick start to solar in the U.S. They want to be 25% of the grid by 2025! Is this realistic?
check them out at:
www.jointhesolution.com/yorkville
www.powur.com/yorkville

Comment
20 of 30

robert-veach-61249

February 28, 2007

With a specific price of approximately Euro 3,250 per kilowatt [U.S. $4,226], the power plant is expected to be around 20%-40% cheaper than the going German market price.
WOW-that's $4.00 per watt!

Nick said above:
Here in U.S. there is exuberant talk about Solar, with recently Solar Energy, Green Energy Renewable are reduced to and termed as "Mandated Energy", but hardly any action, except Nevada Solar, thanks to the Nevada's Gov. strimlining the process. Here in California, expect plenty of Lis Pendens, before any solar plant gets off-the-ground.

Comment
21 of 30

brian-ballek-52819

February 28, 2007

Which brings me to the subject of tracking. Tracking sounds great in concept (more hours of sun per day for your modules) but the benefit is quickly eaten up by extra costs for materials, construction and maintenance, not to mention extra investment risk due to moving parts. Finally since tracking system (even single axis) cause more shading, they need to be space farther apart; so much of your additional sunlight is soon lost due to fewer modules in the same area. Finally, it is worth noting that thin-film modules (and particulary CadmiumTeluride) work very well even in diffuse sunlight. For this reason, they begin producing power earlier and stop producing much later than silicon modules. Tracking is not an issue for thin-film because thin-film doesn't *need* it. It would substantially raise costs, maintenance and risk while producing - at best - a very marginal increase in power yield.

- Brian

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22 of 30

brian-ballek-52819

February 28, 2007

Your last 2 points are simply way off base. Thin-film no longer suffers from the "exponential" degradation you describe. That hasn't been true for about 5 years and the studies originally noting that degradation pre-date the market introduction of CadmiumTeluride modules. In addition, thin-film modules have a higher temperature coefficient than do silicon modules, i.e. their performance doesn't drop as the modules heat up. And of course they do heat up, particularly when supported by a tracking system.

Comment
23 of 30

brian-ballek-52819

February 28, 2007

Second, CadmiumTeluride - I am told (perhaps someone with a chemistry background can enlighten me) - is a compound and is not as toxic as Cadmium or Teluride individually. This compound stays above ground between layers of plastic and glass and is then recycled at the end of the plant's useful life. This recycling charge is *already* built-in to the cost of the panels and is executed through an agreement between First Solar and a very large, stable partner that we have every reason to believe will still be around in 30 years to perform its duty.

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24 of 30

brian-ballek-52819

February 28, 2007

Marc,

I have to respond to your issues with thin film.

First, while the project is centralized, it is also modular. In a plant of that scale there will be several (rather large) inverters feeding the power from various parts of the plant into the grid. So any attack would have to wipe out the *entire* plant to bring it off-line. Also, defense against attack simply hasn't been an issue at German PV plants even though there are LOTS of large targets to choose from. The only real concern here is theft and that is being addressed as described in the article.

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25 of 30

philip-livingston-55590

March 2, 2007

Mr. Veach,

Its funny how you want us to help you "evaluate a new bright young company" of which you admitted to be "an associate of" under a comment you made in the aformentioned URL. You also gave your email in that post: r.veach@comcast.net.

For all those who have not read the "Citizenre: A House of Cards?" article, please do so before considering anything Mr. Veach or any other citizenre reps have to say.

Again, the URL is:
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/reinsider/story?id=47419

Comment
26 of 30

philip-livingston-55590

March 2, 2007

Mr. Veach,

There has been substantial discussion of citizenre already on Renewable Energy Access.

Please see the url below:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/reinsider/story?id=47419

Comment
27 of 30

robert-veach-61249

March 3, 2007

Philip;
They do not have to consider anything but look and make their own educated non-risk choice about whether they want to lock in their current energy cost for the next 5-25 years by switching to solar in the future. You respond like the readers of these articles are children who do not have the intellect to make their own decisions, I disagree.
Actually, I am a manager and I am very excited to help my other independent ecopreneurs to get to this level.
thanks;
Robert Veach

Comment
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philip-livingston-55590

April 2, 2007

Mr. Veach,

Have you seen the March issue of Photon Magazine?

It has a great article questioning the validity of Citizenre's press releases.

Comment
29 of 30

matthew-reardon-58767

April 17, 2007

I like what people are saying about combining different renewable energy technologies into one site and making a kind of renewable energy power plant. I envision it in a more deserted sunny area that is however connected to a grid and really big, in the tens or hundreds of square miles size combining anything that is feasible from solar (traditional, thin-film, and CSP), Wind, hydro (rivers, tides, waves, underwater currents), geothermal, fields of switchgrass and algae and other biofuel feedstocks, bifouel facilities and plants, SSP rectennas, renewably powered desalination of seawater and electrolysis of seawater to make hydrogen. all running on the energy and fuel created in a green design closed loop system. Put up a hundred of them around the world and poof, energy crisis solved. Now who's with me?

Comment
30 of 30

carolyn-luce-54460

May 4, 2007

On the question of why PV and not CSP, it occurs to me that current and proposed CSP plants are in very sunny places. Is it possible that CSP just doesn't work in Germany? What's the minimum average daily solar insolation needed to make CSP work?

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