Successful project completion in Hungary

Essen/Würzburg. Together with its Austrian partner in this project, the LSG GROUP, STEAG Solar Energy Solutions GmbH (SENS) has added 130 solar parks with a total capacity of 65 megawatts (MWp) to the Hungarian power grid since August 2020. The plants, which are in the north and east of the country and close to its capital Budapest, benefited from support from the Hungarian government. This is the latest example of how SENS has significantly driven forward the growth of renewable energy in Eastern Europe.

With the successful completion of the project in Hungary, SENS and the LSG GROUP set the foundations for their own ambitions to work together in future as part of a joint venture in the photovoltaic markets of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Further plans are focused not only on Hungary but in particular on Romania and Greece. A glance at the average number of annual hours of sunshine immediately shows that the region offers attractive conditions for photovoltaics: Hungary comes in at 2,500 hours, whereas Germany by comparison achieves only 1,900.

Favourable climate and financial support in Hungary
In the case of Hungary, another encouragement is that the Hungarian government promotes investment specifically in photovoltaics. This is done using the award of “KÁT” licences. These licences guarantee companies investing in the photovoltaic market a fixed feed-in tariff for the green electricity they produce for up to 25 years for systems that do not exceed 0.5 megawatt capacity.

CO₂ savings of 44,000 tonnes per year
Completing the project for the investor Green Source GmbH was demanding, but the success was well worth the effort: Installed at five locations over about ten months, 130 solar parks now feed green electricity into the local grid through an equal number of substations built at the same time. The solar plants have a total capacity of 65 megawatt and produce around 78,000 MWh of green electricity per year. This means future annual savings in CO₂ emissions of almost 44,000 tonnes.

Successful project development under corona conditions
SENS and the LSG GROUP built the project together as the joint general contractor and are understandably satisfied: “Despite massive restrictions due to the pandemic situation, all the works were completed well before the specified deadline and all the plants are now connected to the grid. I am proud about the performance of the whole team and that the logistics and coordination of all those involved on the various construction sites ran so efficiently,” summed up Fabian Herr, Head of Projects at SENS.

With this success under such difficult conditions, partners SENS and the LSG GROUP consider themselves to be excellently equipped for the planned further activities on the Eastern and South-Eastern European photovoltaic markets.