The ribbon was cut on the World’s largest continguous solar plant on 27th April 2006 in Germany. Construction on the 40 million euro (US$48 million) photovoltaic installation started August 2005. This plant demonstrates new standards in cost-efficiency for solar power. Using the master-slave inverter concept developed by Shell, the plant delivers the optimized energy output. Also, flexible installation technology–such as the use of either aluminum, wood or steel racks depending on material prices and the foundation on either concrete or piles–optimizes the costs. And if solar is viable in Germany, just imagine the efficiencies possible where the sun really shines!
Pocking receives an average of 1121 KWh/m2-year. 62,500 modules in 6 parallel linked units deliver power from earth’s closest star to the houses of 3300 Germans via energy company E.on. That’s a total of about 16,5 km (10 miles) of solar panels mounted on a former military grounds at Pocking, near Passau in Bavaria. The installation saves 10,000 tons of CO2 yearly–the equivalent of 1,000 hectares of woodlands.
Solar plants are the new skyscrapers. Last year Shell opened the formerly “world’s largest” solar power plant near Leipzig, producing only 5 MW. The Shell solar plant in Pocking will soon be overtaken by the GE-Powerlight plant in Portugal at 11 MW, brought to you yesterday in TreeHugger. Hot on their heels is a 15 MW plant in South Korea, 100 MW in Israel. The current leader in announced capacity appears to be a 116 MW solar station in Portugal to be built by a consortium of German companies.
Source @ Solar Magazin