Europe’s largest PV plant goes online

From pv magazine Germany

German investment firm Hansainvest Real Assets has inaugurated a 605 MW solar plant in Witznitz, near Leipzig, Germany.

The facility is currently Europe’s largest operational PV project. Before it was commissioned, Europe’s largest solar installation was the 500 MW Núñez de Balboa project located between the municipalities of Usagre, Hinojosa del Valle, and Bienvenida, in southern Spain’s Extremadura region.

The developer of the 605 MW plant, Move On Energy, will install another 45 MW at the site by summer 2024. It took less than two years to build the Witznitz project. The groundbreaking ceremony for the facility took place in June 2022.

Move On Energy deployed around 1.1 million solar modules over 500 hectares of the former “Witznitz II” open-cast brown coal mine. As part of the project, new cycle and riding paths were created. Hedges were created along the fences around the huge power plant.

Hansainvest Real Assets also plans to test “parallel agricultural use on the area below the solar modules.” There is a test area of 5 hectares to 10 hectares for this purpose.

In 2023, the investment firm concluded a long-term PPA with Shell Energy Europe to purchase solar power from the facility.

*The article was updated on April 10 to reflect that Europe’s second largest PV plant is the Núñez de Balboa project, and not the Cestas solar plant, as we previously reported.