In this week, Pfalzsolar – a 100% subsidiary of the German energy supplier Pfalzwerke Aktiengesellschaft – starts the construction of a solar power plant in UK. It is their first project in Great Britain and the beginning of an international expansion at the same time.
The solar park “Hayford Farm II“ in the county of Shropshire will have an installed capacity of 8.4 Megawatt. The project is one of numerous new solar power plants that arise this year in the United Kingdom. The British market has become more and more attractive to international project developers in recent years. “The widespread prejudice that it always rains in Britain isn’t true at all” explains Thomas Kercher, CEO of Pfalzsolar. Indeed, “Hayford Farm II” achieves a specific annual yield of somewhat more than one thousand kilowatt-hours per kilowatt peak, through which the project is quite comparable to those in Middle- and South-Germany. All in all, the newly installed power plant will produce round about 8.5 million kilowatt-hours of solar power each year, which is enough to supply more than 1,800 British households with environmental-friendly energy.
But it’s not only the advantageous climate conditions that have convinced Pfalzsolar to expand their project business from Germany to Great Britain. ”The general conditions for large-scale projects are perfect” says Thomas Kercher. “Legal certainty, a clear compensation structure and mostly transparent approval processes – those are, from our point of view, the most important requirements for an international expansion. In UK, we find a full satisfaction of those requirements” This is one of the main reasons why Pfalzsolar is currently planning the realization of further solar projects in UK in 2015.
“Hayford Farm II” is going to be built near another huge solar park, which was also erected in 2014. As EPC, Pfalzsolar takes on the complete turnkey construction of the project on behalf of a joint venture of the British companies Green Power Investment Holdings Limited and Solar Ventures Limited. At the beginning of the upcoming year, the solar power plant shall feed power into the grid. To ensure a smooth running at the construction site as well as the commissioning date, Pfalzsolar already implemented preliminary construction measures such as fence making and driveways in October. “Since more than ten years, we successfully realize large-scale projects in Germany. Our know-how and our high quality standards have been crucial for differencing our company from international competitors in this project.” Explains Thomas Kercher. The affiliation of Pfalzsolar to a regional German energy supplier also played a central role in this process. “Security as well as reliability are extremely important for our British partners” emphasizes Kercher.
