Adding to the growing strength of subsidy free solar power plants in Germany is a 52.3 MW facility planned by solar and wind power project developer Energiekontor AG. A 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with local electric utility EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG allows the company to build and operate the project without state support available under the country's EEG regime.
The 52.3 MW project is planned for the municipality of Dettmannsdorf in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, east of Rostock. Construction on site is scheduled to commence in autumn 2021 as the company eyes commissioning in Q2/2022. The project is expected to generate close to 55.5 GWh of clean energy annually all of which is contracted to be sold to EnBW for an undisclosed fixed price. Over the 15-year contracted period, it is expected to generate around 830 GWh.
"With the renewed conclusion of a PPA, we are demonstrating that large solar parks can be realised economically outside the EEG regime. With the conclusion of this PPA, we will now quickly push ahead with the project development of the solar park in order to be able to put it into operation in the second quarter of 2022," said Energiekontor CEO Peter Szabo.
The 15-year contract for 52.3 MW solar project is the 2nd such collaboration between the 2 partners, after Energiekontor signed up EnBW for a 15-year contract for 85 MW also in the east of Rostock 2 years back in February 2019.
Bilateral agreements such as the one announced by EnBW and Energiekontor are an increasing segment in the German solar market, where just recently a new market framework for solar was passed by the parliament (see German Parliament Passes EEG 2021; Industry Not Happy).