BayWa r.e. succeeds in Germany's first innovation tender

BayWa r.e. has won with an electrical storage system and supports further changes in the tendering process design.

A total of 650 megawatts was tendered, of which 200 megawatts was to be used for hybrid plants. BayWa r.e. has been awarded a contract in Germany’s first Innovation Tender to develop one of the country’s first hybrid energy plants consisting of solar PV coupled with energy storage in the Pfaffenweiler district in Baden-Württemberg.

The project ‘Spitalhöfe’ will comprise a photovoltaic plant with an output of approx. 7.2 MW and an electric storage unit with an output of approx. 2.9 MW. The storage capacity of the battery storage system will be approx. 1.8 MWh. The expert team for storage at BayWa r.e scaled the innovative hybrid solution in collaboration with leading industrial partners. 

The hybrid plant will make it possible to feed electricity from the photovoltaic system to the storage system at midday, and feed it back into the grid as needed. As a result, the storage system will make an important contribution to grid stability and security of supply.

Marc Krezer, Team Leader for Project Development Germany at BayWa r.e. explains: “This plant combination will allow us to try out new market models. This will enable us to adapt to the electricity market of the future and make an innovative contribution to the energy transition.” 

Krezer adds: “The new innovation tender is ideal for advancing the introduction of new technologies and concepts to the market that are almost market-ready. That’s why we welcome this new tendering format and are delighted to have succeeded in the first round.” However, Krezer remarks: “The new tendering process should be expanded to other promising approaches. For example, technologies such as agrophotovoltaic or floating PV systems could be further developed in practice and established on the German market through their own specific tender systems.”

The construction of Solarpark Spitalhöfe is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2021. The photovoltaic system and the energy storage solution will then start operating in the first quarter of 2022.