More in News, Power Plants, Projects, Europe

Oil and hydro players partner to build utility-scale PV in Austria

The OMV-Verbund partnership will explore mostly-renewable projects in Central Europe but also Russia, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East (Credit: Verbung)

The OMV-Verbund partnership will explore mostly-renewable projects in Central Europe but also Russia, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East (Credit: Verbung)

Austria’s solar ecosystem is to feature a new utility-scale project, sponsored by a €23-billion oil group and the country’s top utility.

Oil and gas conglomerate OMV and hydro specialist Verbund have struck a deal to deploy a 16MW installation in Weinviertel, a wine-making region northeast of capital Vienna.

The 60,000-panel park will stand on 200,000 square metres of land owned by OMV. It will be split into two sites, 9MW Schönkirchen and 7MW Neusiedl an der Zaya.

The 18GWh-a-year installation, set to become operational in Q4 2019, is designed to cover the needs of 5,500 households and slash CO2 emissions by 12,000 tonnes every year.

In a joint statement, OMV and Verbund explained the PV push is part of a new deal, meant to explore mostly-renewable generation and storage schemes to power the oil group’s operations.

The duo, partners since becoming co-shareholders of e-mobility firm SMATRICS in 2017, is now assessing projects in Austria, Germany, Romania but also the Middle-East, Asia-Pacific and Russia.

The agreement, the firms pointed out, includes examining the feasibility of an electrolytic hydrogen power plant, which could help curb industrial CO2 emissions.

According to IRENA, installed PV capacity in Austria stood at 1.4GW last year, short of neighbours Germany (45.9GW) and Switzerland (2.2GW).

The European state is expected by Wood Mackenzie to install a further 1.877GW between 2019 and 2024, breaking the 3.3GW cumulative mark by the latter year.

Tags: austria, europe, omv, oil and gas, oil major, big oil, central europe, romania, utility-scale pv, utility-scale solar, large-scale pv, large-scale solar, solar pv, pv power plants

Understanding bifacial’s true potential: technology innovation and technical bankability of bifacial

  • Oct 07, 2019
  • WEBINAR
  • PV Tech Event

The deployment of bifacial PV technology is growing rapidly. It has proven to be the most effective solution to reduce levelised energy costs (LCOE) and increase the Investment Rate of Return (IRR) of PV systems, offering substantially improved energy yield compared to the use of standard mono-facial modules. Even though the concept is not new, it has been a niche technology for many years with uncertainties in predicting performance and optimizing installations. Today, bifacial technology is becoming mainstream, with capacity available at the multi-gigawatt scale and with corresponding global deployment of project pipelines. Join this webinar, presented by Andrea Viaro, as he discusses the award-winning Swan bifacial module with transparent backsheet from DuPont, its features, benefits and differences vs. standard glass-glass modules. Jinko Solar’s new bifacial technology innovations will also be highlighted, specifically covering profitability in deployment at utility-scale PV power plants. Andrea will be joined by Dr.Lars Podlowski who will give a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of bifacial PV technology, with a special focus on benefits and risks industry buyers and investors should pay attention to.

Understanding bifacial’s true potential: technology innovation and technical bankability of bifacial

PV ModuleTech

  • Oct 22 - Oct 23, 2019
  • Penang, Malaysia
  • PV Tech Event

Understand fully the technical and logistical supply chains that determine the production and performance of solar modules, including all related factors impacting quality, reliability & bankability.

PV ModuleTech

Also read...

Comments