It has only been a years since SunEnergy Europe as Project Developer and BayWa r.e. as EPC implemented one of the largest PV power parks with 31.5 MWp on the Western Pomeranian coast, on the former military airfield of Barth. Now the two partners have added an additional 8.2 MWp on just about 11 hectares so that technically there is enough PV capacity installed to cover the electricity demand of far more than 10,000 households around the town of Barth.

The installation process was finished at high speed within just one month. However, preparatory work was what needed somewhat more time: the grounds needed to be cleared off old ammunition while the extremely long-lasting winter period proved to be a challenge for the project’s progress. Before the works could actually begin, a special certificate stating there is no dazzling risk was needed to avoid interference with Barth airport. The 31,000 modules come from Yingli while the inverters were delivered from Power One. According to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), the power park at Divitz-Spoldershagen was Germany’s largest PV plant installed in the month of July 2013. Connection to grid will be fixed within this month using the airport’s electrical substation which was built last year.

SunEnergy Europe’s construction site manager Joachim Radler looks back upon what he calls a “smooth working process”. According to him, public and airport authorities all acted together to facilitate a quick progress. As Radler puts it, “projects of this size need a joint effort  - and everyone involved in the project worked together really well.”

Now, when you book a flight around Barth and the island of Ruegen, what you see is not only beautiful landscape with cranes preparing for the long trip to Africa, but moreover another piece of the German “Energiewende” (energy turnaround): former contaminated conversion area turned into a place of clean energy generation for the benefit of the whole region and the climate.