Solar park boom fades as hybrid projects gain ground

Estonia’s Lääneranna rural municipality failed to find a developer for a solar park over three years, while Elering says interest in new solar parks has been declining and hybrid plants with energy storage are becoming more attractive, ERR reported.

At the end of August, the Lääneranna municipal council decided to end preparations for a detailed plan for the Alaküla Lodu solar power plant. The municipality held three auctions to establish a building right for a solar power plant on the Lodu cadastral property, but all failed because there were no interested bidders.

Henrik Raave, deputy mayor of Lääneranna, said the situation reflected waning interest in developing solar parks.

“There may simply be enough of them already, or I cannot say. At the moment, there is more interest in data centres, battery parks and, of course, wind energy. These three are currently more popular than solar energy,” Raave said.

He said the municipality had also been asked where a data centre could be built in the Lihula area, citing the region’s strong electricity connections, the planned Estonia-Latvia power line and existing solar and wind parks.

In response to the changing interests, the municipality plans to divide the property and launch a new detailed plan so that potential developers can consider the site.

Raave said areas that cannot be subject to a building right or sold would be separated from the property because they are part of the Matsalu green network on the edge of Matsalu National Park. The end of the property closer to the highway could be developed and sold, he said. The municipality therefore plans to prepare a new detailed plan for a data centre or similar industrial facility.

River Tomera, Elering’s head of renewable energy development, said declining interest had been evident for several years. He said solar parks had been built in Estonia at nearly one and a half times the country’s summer electricity consumption, which had clearly affected electricity prices and reduced the productivity of solar parks for producers.

“The market may probably not need many more solar parks on their own. However, solar parks are being built as hybrid parks with storage technologies, perhaps alongside wind parks. By combining them with another technology, they can still be profitable,” Tomera said.

He added that the pace of solar park development had clearly slowed and that such parks had not received subsidies for six years.

Tomera said it would make more sense in the future to build solar parks close to consumers who could use the electricity they produce.