By Kari Williamson

The thin-film solar park was completed in less than two months, and fulfils the conditions for obtaining the German EEG feed-in tariffs of 2011.

The installation is on a former military property, and consists of more than 50,000 thin-film solar panels. The annual output is expected to be around 10.5 GWh.

The thin-film solar panels comprise a mixture of Masdar PV’s dual-junction micromorph and established amorphous modules.

Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar says: “This project is the largest PV installation of solar modules in Thuringia and the first application of our new micromorph silicon technology using full size module at high efficiency. It supports the UAE leadership’s vision of making Masdar a pre-eminent source for knowledge and development of renewable energy. The effective project management and coordination with the State of Thuringia and system integrator were the major reasons for the fast construction of the park. This enables us to further contribute to the region’s power supply with renewable energies.”

The solar power plant is designed and constructed by UAE based system integrator Enviromena Power Systems, which has previously collaborated with Masdar on a variety of solar PV projects including a 10 MW solar power farm installed in 2009 at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Enviromena CEO Sami Khoreibi, adds: “Of particular interest to us were the logistics associated with the first installation of Masdar PV’s full size modules. More than half of the 11.7 MW plant are at 5.7 m2 size each substantially larger than any other solar module. We found the full size modules quite efficient to handle and in fact were able to install the entire field in less than 6 weeks.”

The thin-film solar power plant also incorporates technology from solar inverter manufacturer SMA, and solar racking manufacturers Krinner and PUK.