German solar developer S.A.G. Solarstrom has connected three solar parks totalling 44MW of capacity to the grid, beating the Renewable Obligation (RO) deadline.
The largest of the three parks is the 33MW development at the former Royal Air Force base in Wymeswold, Leicestershire. The 61-hectare site is now home to more than 137,000 Trina Solar modules, which are predicted to generate enough electricity to supply over 8,000 four-person households every year.
The two other solar parks are situated in the traditional solar park hotbed of the UK, the south-west. Both developments are predicted to generate around 5,300MWh each annually, negating 2,883 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process.
Commenting on the solar developments, Karl Kuhlmann, CEO of S.A.G. Solarstrom AG, said: “The parallel implementation of projects of this size requires outstanding planning and sophisticated logistics. Due to the key date regulation at the end of March, we were also under time pressure. We nevertheless succeeded in completing all projects on schedule.”
All three systems were completed in time to claim the higher RO rate of 2ROCs and the company has agreed power purchase agreements (PPAs) for all of the systems.
Despite the lower RO rate of 1.6ROCs, Kuhlmann remains buoyant about the future of large-scale solar in the UK. “Even after the amendment to the ROC assessment basis, the UK still offers very good conditions for implementing further projects in 2013, which we already have in the planning phase,” he said.