Showpiece Large-Scale Solar Project

Completion of Radelstetten solar farm on the Alb, Swabia.

A former munitions warehouse for the armed forces (of all places) mutates into a symbol for pollution-free technology and solar energy generation. This would have hardly been in the wildest fantasies of the initiators in the sixties when the bunker complex was planned.

Until 2000, the site had been monitored and sealed off under the strictest safety precautions. Now, the sun has unlimited access far into the 21st century. Where enormous sums of money were once swallowed up by the Federal and local government there is now a profitable property which is an ecological and economical showpiece.

The 1.1 MW solar electricity generation plant has all the refinements commensurate with an optimised a system. A total of 6012 Luxor high performance modules convert the sun’s energy into usable electricity. In order to feed it to the grid, the direct current is converted to alternating current using fully developed dc-ac converters from LTi REEnergy GmbH in Unna. K2 Systems GmbH supplied the optimum installation solution for securely attaching the modules, with a plant monitoring system to provide immediate notification should there be a failure in any of the 21 bunker systems. Constant plant profitability is guaranteed by long-term maintenance and service contracts.

The total output of these systems is considerably increased by tracking the majority of the sun’s radiation. The tracking system follows the sun from sunrise to sunset over an impressive 340° arc. An official yield assessment certificated the tracking system with an additional yield which is significantly more than 25% above those of rigid systems.

The initiators of this large-scale project can be well satisfied. All the careful planning and work carried out by the local company SoLEP GmbH and Krannich Solar Projekt GmbH has paid off and every one of the companies and enterprises taking part in the project played their part in ensuring the project’s smooth completion.

Thus, an investor for the large-scale project was found at the beginning of the planning phase. The plant was completed and put into operation in November 2009, which was earlier than expected.