Sunny prospects with solar energy

Since 2008, one focus of our electricity generation has been the development of solar parks. We inaugurated our first large solar park in 2010 in Leibertingen, a municipality in Baden-Württemberg in the district of Sigmaringen. Since then, we have been driving the expansion forward and have taken over operations. We carefully examine which areas are suitable, such as former agricultural land or industrial areas, so-called conversion areas.

Between 2015 and 2019, we took part in various tenders and were awarded a total of 14 contracts for 64 megawatts. This made us one of the most successful companies and the leading energy supplier in the field of solar energy tenders even back then.

At the end of 2020, we connected the Weesow-Willmersdorf solar park to the grid. It is located north of the town of Werneuchen, in the district of Barnim, in Brandenburg. With a capacity of around 187 megawatts, it is currently Germany's largest solar park (as of 12/2023). After barely a year of construction, there are now 465,000 solar modules on 164 hectares. In addition: Weesow-Willmersdorf is the first large-scale PV project in Germany to be realized without state subsidies.

The number of households supplied is based on the average annual electricity consumption of around 2,900 kWh for a three-person household.

January 2021 sees the start of construction of the Gottesgabe and Alttrebbin solar parks in Brandenburg. Both large-scale projects are connected to the grid at the beginning of 2022 and secure the electricity for around 90,000 households on an area the size of 380 soccer pitches. Their combined installed capacity is 300 megawatts. For EnBW, these are the first two parks in which bifacial modules are being used. These modules are also photoelectrically active on the back and therefore achieve a higher solar yield. Together with the Weesow-Willmersdorf solar park, the three parks form a solar cluster with around 500 megawatts, which avoids around 325,000 tons of CO₂.

We already have battery storage systems in use at several locations, but on the occasion of the storage system for the newly built park in Bruchsal, north of Karlsruhe, we are announcing: We are the first German energy company ever planning to install battery storage systems in our solar parks as a matter of principle. The only exceptions are when the local conditions and circumstances do not allow this. The storage systems we operate relieve the load on the electricity grid by collecting the energy generated when the feed-in capacity of a solar park into the regional distribution grid is limited. The battery storage system at the Bruchsal solar park has a capacity of 3.5 megawatt hours – as much as around 100 electric cars.

In future, however, we will not only combine solar parks with battery storage systems: We are also building wind power and PV installations on one site. We expect to connect the first park of this type to the grid at the end of 2024, in Gundelsheim in the district of Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg. The area of 64 hectares is suitable for the construction of photovoltaic systems as well as two wind turbines. This combination in particular makes the best possible use of the area, as the types of generation complement each other: when the sun is shining, it is usually less windy. If it is cloudy, there is usually more wind. This makes it easier to compensate for fluctuations in generation.

From citizen consultation hours to websites: local authorities benefit most from our solar parks when we involve their citizens in the planning of land use at an early stage. One exemplary project in this respect is the Langenenslingen-Wilflingen solar park in Baden-Württemberg. It is expected to go into operation in spring 2025 with a capacity of 80 megawatts and will protect the environment in the best possible way with the help of new plantings and nature conservation measures. The Görlsdorf solar park in Brandenburg, which is scheduled to go into operation in the fourth quarter of 2025, also shows how citizen participation works. It also shows how parks can serve as grazing areas for sheep and as new habitats for native plant and animal species.

By 2025, our solar portfolio is expected to have a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts. This is an important step towards achieving our goal of generating at least half of our energy from renewable sources by 2025 – and achieving climate neutrality across the Group by 2035.