First module rows installed at Europe’s biggest bifacial solar park
In Northern Greece, the juwi group is building a 204 megawatt (MW) solar park for the Hellenic Petroleum Group. Climate-friendly electricity for 75,000 households.
Another milestone achievement in the construction process of Europe’s biggest bifacial solar park: After having extensively prepared the 450 hectare project site with racks and frames juwi Hellas installed the first rows of PV modules at the Kozani solar park in Northern Greece– almost half a million more will follow within the next months.
“Despite the Covid pandemic and restrictions on the construction site we are still on schedule”, says Takis Sarris, managing director of the Greek juwi subsidiary. “The plant is scheduled to be connected to the grid by February ‘22”, Sarris continues. It will then be handed over to the future operator Hellenic Petroleum Group.
The Kozani solar park is currently Europe’s biggest bifacial solar park. Bifacial PV modules use solar energy on the front and back of the module. That makes them more efficient and ultimately means that more electricity can be generated in the same area. The concept is not new, but the technology has recently been further developed so that it is not only more efficient, but also less expensive compared to conventional PV modules. Since the modules can also convert reflected and diffuse light into electricity, they achieve an additional electricity yield of up to ten percent compared to conventional modules. In case of the Kozani solar park the additional yield is up to five percent. Takis Sarris: “Solar energy is already the cheapest form of electricity generation in Greece. The technology with bifacial modules reinforces this development again. In this way, we can generate more electricity in less space at even lower costs. "
After its completion the Kozani solar park will deliver more than 300 million kilowatt hours of climate-friendly electricity a year - enough to supply 75,000 Greek households with clean electricity. The investment volume is 136 million euros.
Kozani is located approx. 120 kilometers south-west of Thessaloniki in the north of Greece.
About the juwi group
The juwi group is one of the leading specialists for renewable energies. The German renewable energy pioneer has been offering complete project development as well as other services relating to the planning, construction and operation of renewable energy systems for 25 years. The juwi group's business areas include projects with wind and solar energy as well as hybrid systems with storage systems for industrial applications.
Juwi was founded in 1996 in Rhineland-Palatinate. The company is now based in Wörrstadt near Mainz and has been part of Mannheim-based MVV Energie AG, one of the largest municipal energy providers in Germany, since the end of 2014. The juwi group employs around 850 people worldwide and has projects on every continent. There are branches in: Germany, Italy, Greece, South Africa, the USA, Japan, Australia, India as well as the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
To date, juwi has implemented more than 1,000 wind energy systems with an output of more than 2,400 megawatts at around 180 locations worldwide; in the solar segment there are around 1,800 PV systems with a total output of more than 3,000 megawatts. Together, these energy systems generate around nine billion kilowatt hours of electricity each year; In purely mathematical terms, this corresponds to the annual requirements of around three million households in Germany. For the implementation of the energy projects, juwi has initiated an investment volume of almost ten billion euros over the past 25 years.
