Optimising land use with Floating-PV

BayWa r.e. implemented Germany's largest Floating-PV system to date (May 2022) for family-owned Quarzwerke GmbH at their factory premises at Haltern am See, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

By utilizing Floating-PV technologies, energy-intensive industrial mineral companies such as Quarzwerke GmbH can also profit from their own water spaces which aren’t being used commercially. A Floating-PV system can offer an attractive investment opportunity.

Available bodies of water that aren’t being used for either recreational purposes or designated for nature or water protection, provide an excellent opportunity for businesses. By developing a floating solar farm a company can provide its own green energy for their nearby factories and premises.  

With our Floating-PV systems and attractive self-consumption and refund schemes, we ensure the best possible and at the same time most economical solution for our customers. We provide all services, from project development, planning, procurement and financing to turnkey construction, commissioning, and maintenance from a single source.

Throughout the planning and implementation phase of the plant, we took into account the customer's requirements but also the specific site conditions - such as biodiversity, preservation of the high water quality, landscape integration and, of course, compliance with the highest safety standards for all local residents. Thanks to our sophisticated and award-winning anchoring system, the stability and safety of the plant can be ensured at all times.

Our system can also be flexibly adapted to different site conditions. In this project, for example, the floating substructure was adapted to the expected snow loads. Thanks to the floating transformer stations, no additional space was required on site as electricity conversion to medium voltage is directly taking place on the water surface. 

In addition, vast expertise and many years of experience of the BayWa r.e. team ensured a time-efficient and optimally coordinated construction process. As a result, the project was completed in just six weeks. 

The Floating-PV plant was built on the 'Silver lake III', adjacent to the Quarzwerke factory, on an area of just under 1.8 hectares. Around 5,800 photovoltaic modules produce a total installed nominal output of around 3 MWp and around 3 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. This saves around 1,100 tons of CO₂ each year for the company. Around 75 percent of the green electricity is used by the company for self-consumption. The surplus green electricity is fed into the public grid. 

Together with Quarzwerke, BayWa r.e. is doing pioneering work and demonstrates that plants can be operated economically even without public subsidies. The Floating-PV plant enables the company to significantly reduce its own carbon footprint and steps out of dependency, countering rising energy prices and CO₂ costs.