The Greek public power company (PPC Group) announced that it has built a solar photovoltaic cluster with a total installed capacity of 2.13GW on the decommissioned brown coal mine site in Western Macedonia, making it the largest photovoltaic project cluster in Europe. The cluster is expected to generate up to 3,150GWh of electricity per year, about 6% of the country’s annual electricity consumption.
The PV facility developed by the PPC Group in the former lignite mining area of Western Macedonia, Greece, constitutes the largest PV cluster in Europe. (Image source: PPC Group)
The core projects of this cluster include the 550MW Phoebe photovoltaic power station located near Pontocomi (Pontokomi), with an estimated annual output of 880GWh, accounting for 1.8 per cent of the electricity generated by Greece’s interconnected system. In addition, PPC has partnered with German energy giant Rhein Group (RWE) to develop a 940MW Amyntaio PV complex. The project spans four regions, Rodonas (Rodonas), Philotas (Filotas), Lakkia (Lakkia) and Perdikas (Perdikkas), and is expected to generate up to 1,500GWh of electricity per year.
In addition to the large projects mentioned above, the portfolio includes the 200MW Helios Velos 1 power station (320GWh per year), the 80MW Exochi 7 power station (122GWh per year) and the 80MW Akini power station (122GWh per year) near Putolaida (Ptolemaida). Another 10 small photovoltaic power plants together form this huge cluster.
To support the operation of these ground power stations, PPC is building a large-scale energy storage system, covering electrochemical energy storage and hydraulic energy storage technologies. At present, the company has built a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a total capacity of 98MW/196MWh near the Kardia (Kardia) and Meliti (Meliti) power plants. In addition, a 50MW/200MWh electrochemical energy storage station located near the Aminteo (Amyntaio) power plant is about to be put into operation, and the system has a grid power supply capacity of up to 4 hours.
