Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) has announced plans to build a 175MW Weesow-Willmersdorf solar park in Germany.

EnBW

Image: EnBW to develop 800MW solar portfolio. Photo: Courtesy of Energie Baden-Württemberg AG.

Expanding its activities in the solar sector over the past few months, EnBW claims to have now established a project development pipeline of around 800MW.

The Weesow-Willmersdorf solar project is expected to generate nearly 175GWh of clean electricity every year, which will be sufficient to power nearly 50,000 German households, while helping to save 125,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from entering the atmosphere.

The solar plant will be built on an area of about 164 hectares. This project, which has been in development since 2009, was acquired from Procon Solar last year.

EnBW generation portfolio development head Dirk Güsewell said: “We have seen a remarkable development over the past few years in solar technology. Due to technical advances, the cost of constructing solar parks has fallen dramatically – by up to 90 per cent over the last ten years in Germany. Therefore, today the costs involved in solar energy are on at least an equal footing with other technologies – which has also been demonstrated by the results of the latest auctions.

“We anticipate that the first large solar projects will be realised without EEG funding in the foreseeable future. Solar energy thus has a realistic chance of achieving this market maturity.”

EnBW stated that the land for the Weesow-Willmersdorf solar plant has been secured and building requirements have been satisfied in the development plan. Presently, work on the planning stage is going on. Following the creation of a technical execution plan and the investment decision, construction of the park is expected to start by the end of the year.

Last month, the company acquired seven wind farms in Sweden, totaling 105MW.