Germany – RWE is currently building two plants in Germany that incorporate solar and battery storage facilities.
A total of more than 58,340 modules will gather sunlight at the Garzweiler Mine in North Rhine-Westphalia, close to the town of Bedburg, to generate green electricity for more than 7,250 houses. For use in local power plants, lignite is produced at the Garzweiler Mine.
Directly beneath the Königshovener Höhe wind farm, which is jointly run by the city of Bedburg and RWE, a photovoltaic plant with a peak generation capacity of 19.4 megawatts peak (MWp) and a storage capacity of 6.5 MW is being constructed. At this location, work has already begun. The first solar modules have been built, and parts of the substructure are now in place. At the western side of the opencast mine lies the Jackerath project, which has a solar capacity of 12.1 MWp and 4.1 MW of battery storage. The batteries are made to have a two-hour supply and charging cycle.
Another facility
A comparable facility is about to be put into operation at the neighboring Inden Mine. There, RWE has connected a battery storage system to more than 26,500 solar panels. The plant can generate enough green electricity to power about 4,000 houses. At Hambach Mine, a new combined photovoltaic and storage facility will be built. Additionally, it is situated in the Rhenish lignite mining region. By 2030, RWE intends to construct renewable energy facilities with a minimum capacity of 500 megawatts in the Rhenish lignite mining region alone.
