Mecklenburg. Rural tranquillity. A major project in the energy revolution is set to launch between villages and fields: the Tramm-Göthen solar park, between Ludwigslust and Schwerin. Covering an area almost the same size as 350 football pitches, the installation will be one of the biggest in Germany. The final preparations are underway. “With a little luck we will be able to use our own energy to light up our Christmas tree,” said project manager Thomas Heinz of global solar specialists Belectric, with a twinkle in his eye.
Huge solar park in Mecklenburg
Soon the sun will
supply electric cars
with clean energy here
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a major project in the energy revolution is set to launch in the form of the Tramm-Göthen solar park. Volkswagen is backing the initiative, to make more clean energy available for electric cars.
From the beginning of 2022, the sun is set to provide the energy required to supply 50,000 households a year here. Installed capacity: 172 megawatts. Volkswagen is backing the project as a reliable industrial consumer, to make more clean energy available for electric cars.
The huge solar park is being implemented by asset manager Luxcara, who specialise in renewable energy. The electricity will be fed to Volkswagen via energy provider RWE.
Coronavirus meant that materials were in short supply on a regular basis. Our mantra was: We’ll get it done anyway.
Thomas Heinz
Project manager
Project manager Heinz has been building solar parks for more than ten years. So he has a wealth of experience – and this was vital, because it wasn’t just the size that made Tramm-Göthen a challenging task, it was the pandemic as well. “Coronavirus meant that materials were in short supply on a regular basis. Once, we had to transport a consignment of solar panels from Mongolia by train because the ports were closed. We were facing this kind of uncertainty all the time,” said Heinz. “Our mantra was: We’ll get it done anyway.”
The last of the 420,000 solar panels will soon be installed – then the installation will generate enough energy to supply around 50,000 households a year.
It worked. After only about a year, almost 100,000 pillars are in the ground, 420,000 solar panels have been installed. “The cables that we wired would wrap around the earth several times,” said Heinz. The cables connect the sections of the solar park to each other and the substation, from where the electricity flows into the public grid.
It’s three kilometres from Heinz’ office to the end of the major construction site, which had 200 people working on it at one time. “With these kinds of distances it isn’t feasible to walk. When I want to take a look at something, I jump in the car,” admits the project manager. The solar park is so big that, strictly speaking, it is made up of 14 smaller parks. “Each of these sections are fenced off to ensure that there are no accidents. We laid footpaths for pedestrians between the sections. It’s almost like a local recreational area,” said Heinz.
Sturdy cables for lots of electricity. “The cables that we wired would wrap around the earth several times,” said project manager Heinz.
In general, the project partners value the locals being okay with the solar park – and not just the people, but flora and fauna as well. The goal: the solar park should not reduce the biodiversity, and compared with agricultural use it should even improve it.
Huge solar park in Mecklenburg - Soon the sun will supply electric cars with clean energy here
Which is why, in addition to wildflower meadows and bodies of water for frogs, the site includes thick hedgerows and vegetation, which provide favourable living conditions for insects and birds. Endangered species such as the hare find refuge in protected areas under the solar panels. “At the end of the day, it is much better for nature than a cornfield,” said Heinz.
Good for the environment
Solar parks like Tramm-Göthen unite environmentally-friendly energy production with the protection of natural habitats. There’s no need to tarmac areas. Noise is avoided. In Belectric’s experience, solar parks can even encourage biodiversity:
- Wild herbs, insects and birds thrive without being disturbed
- Plants can blossom and seed
- Animals can rear their young
- Endangered species find refuge
- Wildflower strips boost the population of honey bees
Environmentally friendly in two respects: solar installations not only provide clean energy, they can also offer protection for endangered animals.
But why a location in northern Germany? This is down to investor Luxcara. “We set up our solar parks without applying for any subsidies. The days of this only making economic sense in Southern Europe are over,” said Lorenz Hahn of Luxcara. The increasing efficiency and falling prices of solar panels mean that parks in Central Europe and Northern Europe are also economically viable – this is even more true with rising electricity prices.
This is also the case at Tramm-Göthen. An added bonus of the project is its size. “A large park is more cost-effective to plan and build than lots of little ones,” said Hahn.
The days of setting up solar parks without subsidised feed-in tariffs exclusively in Southern Europe are over.
Lorenz Hahn
Luxcara
Additional solar parks like Tramm-Göthen accelerate the energy revolution and do their bit for climate protection. From the perspective of marketing partner RWE Supply & Trading, automotive companies can make an important contribution. “New green energy projects without subsidies only come about when sales are secured. So, reliable consumers like Volkswagen are key,” said Ralph Neuber of RWE.
New green energy projects without subsidies only come about when sales are secured. Reliable consumers like Volkswagen are key.
Ralph Neuber
RWE
The energy from Mecklenburg might not be feeding directly into Volkswagen’s electric cars – but it is promoting a wider range of green energy in the grid, which improves the carbon footprint of electric cars. Volkswagen is the first automobile manufacturer to support the expansion of renewable energy on an industrial scale. By 2025, the corporation will advance the expansion of European wind and solar parks by investing around 40 million euros.
New wind park in Skellefteå in northern Sweden: Volkswagen is promoting the generation of green energy here as well – one of 20 projects by 2025.
In addition to the Tramm-Göthen project, a wind park belonging to energy provider wpd in Skellefteå in northern Sweden is one of the first installations. Around another 20 projects are set to follow by 2025. In total, the installations will generate an additional 7 terawatt hours of green energy. In conjunction with the net-zero climate-neutral manufacturing of its ID. models, this sees Volkswagen take another major step towards net-zero climate-neutral electric mobility throughout the entire lifecycle. Within the corporation, VW Kraftwerk GmbH is the central body responsible for implementing the green energy projects.
Automobile manufacturers play an important role in the energy revolution when it comes to technology as well. After all, the batteries of electric cars will be an important accumulator for electricity in the future, which can either be used to make journeys with the car, or be fed back into the grid when there is high demand. “This means that there will be a huge storage capacity available, which increases flexibility and stabilises electricity demand,” says Neuber. Volkswagen is set to launch this technology – bidirectional charging.
