On 12.49 hectares of land just outside Weierweiler, enough green electricity will be produced in the future to supply thousands of households.
On 12.49 hectares of land just outside Weierweiler, enough green electricity will be produced in the future to supply thousands of households.
The fact that the ground-breaking ceremony for the largest solar park in the Saarland in Weierweiler on Wednesday could only be celebrated in a small circle was due to Corona. “The invitation to the neighbouring citizens will follow later”, assured Andreas Thiele, managing partner of Sunera erneuerbare Energien GmbH. But Weiskirchen’s mayor, Wolfgang Hübschen, learned a little later, so to speak on behalf of the town, about the figures that distinguish the second construction phase of this solar park at the gates of the curative-climatic health resort as currently the largest in Saarland.
“This second construction phase is again being realised by Sunera from Sulzbach (investor and builder-owner) together with Goldbeck Solar GmbH from Hirschberg (general contractor)”, and Hermann Lang (Sunera) added, “together with the first construction phase, which will already be completed in 2017, the Weierweiler solar park will then be the largest in Saarland at the moment with a total of 20 megawatts (MW)”. Once completed, this capacity could supply around 6000 three-person households with green electricity. If the total of 63,426 modules from both construction phases produce around 20,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of environmentally friendly electricity in the coming year, they would also save around 10,000 tonnes of CO2.
The completion of this second construction phase and the feeding of electricity into the public grid is planned for August 2020. In this context, Thiele proudly pointed out that the electricity produced from the new construction phase will be particularly favorable at a cost of around 5.2 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) over a period of 20 years. In contrast, other power generators such as wind power in rural areas required production costs of around six cents per kWh in order to be operated economically.
The Weierweiler Solar Park covers a total area of 12.49 hectares, spread over five individual areas in the hilly landscape just outside Weierweiler. From the roads leading past, the huge plant is hardly visible. Weiskirchen’s mayor Hübschen also referred to this successful integration into the surrounding nature yesterday, saying he was pleased and grateful for this project, which, apart from its important contribution to both ecological and economical energy production, can also be easily reconciled with the goals of the only health resort in Saarland with a healthy climate.
When the responsible persons took the appropriate distance to the spades with the Corona, Alexander Gutsch as sales manager of Goldbeck Solar pointed out the increasingly important role of green electricity, without which Saarland could not realize its perspective as a future hydrogen state. “Only this green electricity, for example from such solar parks, will soon be able to produce hydrogen in the quantities required to make hydrogen-powered cars an attractive alternative to e-cars in the Saar region.
In this context, the mayor gladly accepted the thanks of the building owners for the fact that this large project, unlike many others, especially wind power plants, can be realized without much protest from the population. For his part, Hübschen assured that this was also and not least due to the successful public relations work of those responsible. All this can then be celebrated with the citizens after the Corona crisis is hopefully soon over.
Source: Rundschau für Merzig-Wadern
Photo: Dieter Ackermann
The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by (from left): Benedikt Heinen (Goldbeck), Mayor Wolfgang Hübschen, Hermann Lang (Sunera), Andreas Thiele (Sunera) and Alexander Gutsch (Goldbeck).
