Solarcentury has developed, constructed and sold its first ground-mount solar farm in Germany, continuing its expansion throughout Europe.
The company put together the Calvörde solar farm in five weeks alongside Polch-based developer Sybac Solar. Solarcentury designed the system, secured financing and managed the build, while Sybac assumed construction responsibilities.
And Nikolaus Krane, Solarcentury’s director for Germany, hinted that the company could continue to line up ground-mount solar farms in the country.
“Calvörde solar farm is the first in a pipeline of new projects we are looking at in Germany. The levelised cost of solar electricity in Germany is below the wholesale market price for industrial/commercial off-takers, which makes ground mounted solar of this size financially viable,” Krane said.
Calvörde was one of 25 projects which successfully bid for tariff support under Germany’s last tender in April 2015. Of those projects, which have a combined generation capacity of 150MW, Calvörde was the first to complete.
Solarcentury chief executive Frans van den Heuvel said that the project demonstrated that it was possible to operate in the “highly competitive” German market by establishing “the right partnerships”.
“This latest project is part of Solarcentury’s international growth strategy, bringing our engineering expertise and experience to deliver solar projects in Africa and LatAm, and in European markets.
“We believe the outlook for solar in Germany is getting brighter, despite mixed fortunes of the recent past. Solar in Germany is welcome news for businesses who can adopt solar as a way to fix their long-term energy costs, reduce reliance on grid energy and cut their carbon emissions,” he added.