Hanwha Q CELLS and ISM Group, a German developer and installer, have completed a 10MW PV plant in the Bitterfeld region of eastern Germany.
The Alte Kaserne Bitterfeld-Wolfen plant is a comparative rarity in Germany, where progressive cuts to feed-in tariffs have now all but killed off the country’s market for new large-scale solar projects.
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The plant, completed in six months, features over 38,000 of Hanwha Q CELLS’ Q.PRO-G3 modules, which will collectively generate around 11GWh of power a year, according to the two companies.
“My heartfelt thanks go to all the partners, who have been involved in connecting this plant to the grid in record time and in a highly professional manner,” remarked Tobias Schmidt, shareholder of ISM Group, at the launch of the power plant on Friday.
“The solar modules are of particular importance for the profitability of the power plant. The outstanding performance output of Q CELLS' modules under weak light, for instance in the evening or on cloudy days, as well as their quality and reliability, make the decisive difference.”
During Intersolar Europe in Munich last week, the ongoing weakness of Germany’s PV market came under the spotlight, with the country’s solar association, BSW Solar, predicting it could fail to muster 1.5GW of new capacity this year. That was underlined in a report yesterday by market research Mercom, which forecast just 1.3GW for Germany in 2015.
However, there are hopes that the larger PV segment in Germany will be at least partially revived by a series of project tenders planned between now and 2017.