Enefit Green has made an investment decision to build a solar farm in the industrial area of the Estonia Mine in Ida-Virumaa. The project will have a capacity of nearly 3MW and will be located on a platform made of waste rocks. A 27-metre-high structure was built for the solar park on a mine site from waste rock generated during oil shale extraction. This allows to reduce losses due to shadowing and thereby makes electricity production more efficient. Enefit Green will invest up to €2.7m to build the project. Construction of the solar park will begin in the first half of next year, and the park is scheduled to begin production in early 2024. According to Enefit Green Renewable Energy Project Manager Elise Johanna Lill, the solar park is the second one the company is building in an industrial area. “Pre-mined areas, as well as other low-value lands, are very suitable for building solar power plants.
The development of renewable energy in industrial areas serves several environmental purposes. For example, it offers the opportunity to use waste rock generated during mining as construction material and to supply the mine with green energy,” Lill said. Lill added that the establishment of Estonia Solar Park is part of the company’s growth plan to significantly increase their output of renewable energy. “Enefit Green will quadruple its green electricity production capacity in the coming years. Solar energy has great growth potential for us in the Baltic and Polish markets. Next year, we plan to make investment decisions for the construction of large-scale solar parks in Estonia and Lithuania with a total volume of over 200MW.”
Credits: renews.biz [Image: Enefit Green]