EnBW inaugurates its first solar park in Hesse

Bad Camberg. A little over a year after the council in Bad Camberg approved plans for the solar park, another building block in the energy transition has been completed. EnBW’s first solar park in the state of Hesse is situated right by the A3 motorway near Bad Camberg. On Friday afternoon (14 October), EnBW inaugurated the new solar park together with Hesse's Minister for the Environment Priska Hinz, Deputy Mayor Ruprecht Keller, Mayor Jens-Peter Vogel and citizens from the region.

The roughly four-megawatt plant in the district of Limburg-Weilburg generates enough solar energy to cover the annual electricity needs of around 1,500 households. It is divided into three solar fields. The railroad line along the A3 runs between the solar fields. If you travel by train from Frankfurt am Main to Limburg an der Lahn, the section of the journey near Bad Camburg takes you through the middle of the solar park.

Minister for the Environment Priska Hinz stresses in her welcoming: “We have a clear goal: The state wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2045. The further expansion of solar energy is an important stepping stone toward achieving this goal. Besides the role played by solar energy in mitigating climate change, the war in Ukraine makes it very clear that we must end our reliance on fossil fuel sources even more quickly. Between 10,000 and 15,000 hectares of land for large-scale PV power plants are required across the entire state in order to bring about the urgently needed energy transition. Local authorities must make suitable space available for this purpose as part of the land-use planning process. It is good see Bad Camberg leading the way here!”

Michael Class, Head of Generation Portfolio Development at EnBW, emphasized at the inauguration ceremony just how important every single kilowatt-hour generated from renewable energies really is. “In order to make Germany somewhat less dependent on imports of fossil fuel sources, we must at least triple the scale-up of renewables with immediate effect. To do this, we still need simpler and faster approval processes that are not only implementable in practice, but also actually implemented.” By the end of 2025, EnBW wants half of its generation portfolio to be covered by renewable energies.

District Administrator Michael Köberle, who was represented on site by Ruprecht Keller, welcomes projects such as the new solar park near Bad Camberg, as they make independent of energy supplies on the one hand and also contribute to climate protection.

On a site occupying approximately 5.5 hectares, 8,970 solar modules generate around 4.5 million kilowatt-hours of solar power, covering the annual electricity needs of around 1,550 households and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted each year by around 2,800 metric tons. By way of comparison, one hectare of forest absorbs between 10 and 13 metric tons of CO₂ each year.

EnBW recently began greening the area to create extensive grassland, sowing local seeds on the entire project site (around 6.6 hectares), including between and under the modules. It will also be planting hedges and shrubs over the course of the fall. By doing so, the site will blend in better with its surroundings and provide a protected habitat for flora and fauna.