Conergy and Soligest built 6 MW installations on warehouse roofs

HAMBURG, GERMANY & BRIGNOLES, FRANCE: Conergy France, together with its local partner Soligest, have recently completed three rooftop solar installations with a total power rating of 6.1 megawatts. The solar experts have installed more than 80,000 thin-film modules on 67,000 square metres of roof surface. Conergy was responsible for both the design and technical planning of the installation.

This massive project consists of three separate installations. The largest of the three systems, at 2.7 MW, has been connected to the public grid by the end of January. It was installed on top of a logistics centre in Thiers, Puy-de-Dôme in France; the 2.3 MW installation is located in Bollène in Vaucluse; and a smaller 1.1 MW installation will now produce green energy on top of a warehouse in Maine-et-Loire.

Together these three industrial rooftop installations will produce 6.5 gigawatt hours of clean electricity from the sun per year, the equivalent of the energy consumption of around 2,200 households. This represents a saving of 3,130 tons of damaging CO2 emissions - the equivalent of 45 trucks driving the 738 kilometres between Montreuil (49) and Bollène (84).

"This project has been a great success for Conergy France," says head of Conergy France, Xavier Ansaldi. "It is our biggest project so far this year, and once again our expertise and many years of international experience in major free-field projects and rooftop installations has stood us in good stead."

Conergy's partner Soligest not only installed the systems but will also operate them. Arnaud Maillard, sales manager at Soligest added: "We are delighted with the way everything went so smoothly with our partnership with Conergy, especially when you consider the size and complexity of the project. With the benefit of this experience we know that we now have a very strong team for carrying out future rooftop installation projects, both large and small. We can certainly envisage working with Conergy again."

The three large-scale installations involved in the joint project all benefit from what is known as "tariff protection", so the feed-in tariffs applied will be those that were valid at the time the project was planned back in 2010. Although legislation has changed in France recently, private, medium and large-sized rooftop installations can still be lucrative.Experts estimate that in the coming year the combined output of medium-sized rooftop installations up to 100 kilowatts and larger installations up to 250 kilowatts will be around 220 megawatts.

With eight years in the industry, Conergy is one the most experienced system providers in the French market. Conergy's portfolio includes concepts for all sizes of solar installations, from planning and technical design, construction and delivery of all solar components to maintenance and technical operation. Conergy also offers complete solutions for private roofs that not only satisfy all the requirements for receiving the highest in-feed tariffs, but also already meet the standards that have been established for 2012.