World's Largest Thin-Film Solar Power Plant Opens (6 MW), 40 MW plant started

[philb]

World's Largest Thin-Film Solar Power Plant Opens

The largest thin-film solar power plant in the world has opened in Germany, dubbed the “Rote Jahne”. It was built by the contractor Juwi Solar, and it will have a total output capacity of six megawatts. It uses 90,000 solar modules to capture quite a bit of sunlight. Thin-film solar modules are cheaper than crystalline modules and produce more energy per unit of installed capacity. The thin-film cells were made by First Solar. The solar plant is built on a former military airfield, and its module surface area comprises approximately 16.5 acres.
The array will produce around 5.7 million kilowatt-hours of solar electricity every year, enough to power some 1,900 homes.
Juwi Solar has already started building an even larger 40-megawatt solar park, which will be comprised of 550,000 thin-film modules. That project is due to be finished by the end of 2009.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/worlds_largest_5.php

[autorank]

1. K*R This is terrific. We need this type of news and action.

I heard that a New Zealand concern had developed solar panels that could be produced at 20% of the current cost. This looks like an American company form AZ, hooray for them.

Have you heard of the NZ group? http://tinyurl.com/2fnoos This looks very cool.

Thanks!

[burrowowl]

2. Germany doe not have as much sun as New Mexico

and we don't have a 16 acre solar power plant!?!

[Gregorian]

3. That's not as much as I would expect. But a great step.

16.5 acres is 66,773 square meters.

Assuming 600 Watts per square meter (which I'm sure is way off considering it's Germany),

and 8 hour days, That would be 116 million kilowatt-hours of sunlight that could be received in a year.

That is about 5% efficient.

Maybe it's fewer hours of sunlight, cloudy days, etc.

At any rate, hooray for the beginning of the end of combustion.

[spag68]

4. Solar

Germany not only has less sunlight per year then NM, it has less then New York city. New Mexico has the best solar in the US. I know this is not politics, but if you are interested, check out renewable energy access .com

[tom_paine]

5. It's a start

[mopinko]

6. swords into plowshares

i love it.

[piedmont]

7. at 10 cents per KWH, that's only $570,000 per year

I wonder what this cost to build? And how long it will take to pay it off?

[Duppers]

8. this is what the oil companies / bushco don't want us to hear about

And the naysayers said it wasn't feasible. Good for Juwi Solar!