Lieberose Solar Park
Former military facilities often carve out a miserable existence. The solar park Lieberose, built on a former training ground of the Russian Red Army, lends a sunny perspective to the conversion site.
Chemicals, hand grenades, ammunition, or even warheads – the list of highly dangerous weapons that turned the former military training area Lieberose of the Soviet Army in the community of Turnow-Preilack near Cottbus into a “no-go area”, is long. And because there never were enough funds to dispose of the explosives, the huge area stayed dangerous and unused for years. Now, the project developer juwi and the solar module manufacturer First Solar have constructed a solar park with an investment volume of over 160 million euros. With a one-time payment, along with the lease to Brandenburg as the owner, the removal of the explosive ordnances was finally realized. And Brandenburg profits in two ways: From the lease income, and, after the life time of the PV power plant has run out, by utilizing the area to their liking – in approximately 20 to 30 years it will be available as moorland for nature conservation objectives of the region. This turns the solar park Lieberose into a model project for the renaturation of military grounds which were polluted with explosive ordinances.
Solar electricity for decades to come
On an area of 660.000 square meters the second largest solar park in the world was constructed, with around 900.000 thin-film modules and an output of 71 megawatts. The annual power production is approx. 71 million kilowatt hours. Thus, the solar park produces energy for more than 20.000 households, and on top of that saves around 47.000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year – the amount that would be needed to produce the same power in a conventional power plant mix. The juwi daughter juwi Solar GmbH as the general contractor was responsible for planning, logistics, construction management, as well as the turnkey construction of the plant. It will also be in charge of the technical operation during the operating life. In the spring of this year, the WealthCap, an issuing company for physical investments and a 100% subsidiary of the Hypo-Vereinsbank, took over the solar park Lieberose and established a fund for investors. After the lease has run out, the manufacturer First Solar will take the modules back and they will be brought in one of the company’s recycling plants. With this concept the solar park Lieberose will stay sustainable even after its deconstruction: the used resources can be recycled for new solar modules or in another way, the waste load is reduced considerably, and thus the recycling procedure relieves the environment and future generations.
