Enerparc has built a 40-hectare solar park for Deutsche Bahn (DB) in Wasbek in Schleswig-Holstein. According to the planners' projections, the plant, with its 41 megawatts of output, will supply about 38 gigawatt hours of clean solar electricity every year. But instead of feeding it into the normal power grid, the direct current from the solar park will be converted into alternating current at 16.7 hertz in the transformer station in nearby Neumünster.
Solar energy in the traction power grid is increasing
There is a very special reason for this. Because this is the alternating current frequency in the traction current grid. This means that the new open-space plant in Wasbeck can feed solar energy directly into DB's traction current grid via this transformer station.
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According to DB, this is the first plant to do so. "Deutsche Bahn is already Germany's largest user of green electricity. In addition to wind and hydro energy, solar energy is increasingly becoming one of the renewable energy sources in our traction current mix," explains Berthold Huber, Member of the Management Board for Infrastructure at DB.
65 per cent green electricity in the grid
With the pilot project in Wasbek, DB is consistently pursuing the path of continuously increasing the share of green electricity in the traction current mix, emphasises Huber. In fact, DB already covers 65 per cent of its traction current requirements with renewable energies.
This is far above the public green power mix in Germany of currently around 46 per cent. According to the Group, long-distance passengers have already been travelling with 100 per cent green electricity since 2018.
Switch completely to renewables by 2038
DB aims to run entirely on green electricity by 2038. This means a demand of ten terawatt hours per year. In addition, DB will supply its plants, office buildings and stations in Germany entirely with green electricity by 2025. To this end, the Group subsidiary DB Energie is substantially restructuring its portfolio of contract power plants and supply contracts. Renewable energies are gradually and consistently replacing fossil fuels.
Ten gigawatts is the target
Christoph Koeppen, Managing Director and Chairman of the Board of Energparc adds: "What is special about the solar park in Wasbek is that, in contrast to the established grid connection criteria in the public power grid, for the first time a corresponding solution for connections in the traction power grid could be worked out."
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He added that the company was proud to have worked with DB to implement this innovation in the grid feed-in of renewable energies. The plant also brings Energparc closer to its own goal of developing a total of ten gigawatts of photovoltaic plants for its own portfolio and another ten gigawatts for third-party solar portfolios worldwide by 2030, Koeppen emphasised. (su/mfo)
