meeco’s Prunu photovoltaic site officially connected to EDF/SEI Corsican grid

French 4.422 kWp solar PV power plant started production in late November

Last Monday 29th November 2011 the French EDF/SEI has confirmed the “Mise en service industrielle” or official grid connection of The meeco Group’s Corsican solar photovoltaic power plant “Prunu”. The installation located in the French Department of Corse-du-Sud, specifically in the village of Bastelicaccia, has a total power capacity of 4422 kWp.

The Corsican site is equipped with fixed structures distributed across 17ha result of a joint collaboration between So/Lar Corse (Project Development), ABB (Engineering and Logistics), Ralos GmbH  (Construction and Execution), Canadian Solar (PV modules), KACO new energy (Inverters) and finally The meeco Group (Project Finance, Project Management).  

With an annual horizontal global irradiation of 1520 kWh/m2, the installation is expected to generate well over 6000 mWh of power in the first year of operation and thus save an average of 640 tons of CO2 emissions per year.

With the official grid connection notification comes the first major step into capitalizing the return on investment. EDF/SEI started effectively compensating each kWh produced and delivered to the substation. In these circumstances and upon signing of the Power Purchasing Agreement or “Contrat d’Achat”, the Prunu fixed ground-mounted PV installation was achieved in the legal time frame as defined in Art. 4 from French decree of 09/12/2010 and consequently, will benefit from the Purchase obligation at the Feed-in Tariff of July 2006 granting 42 EURO cents/kWh.

‘Timely project execution according to planning has been a key success factor at Prunu’ says Eric Borremans, Head of project for The meeco Group. ‘Given the current PV French market climate, we are very glad to finalize the project with a 42 cents Tariff and to convey the required trust to the project shareholders that meeco delivers quality and efficient projects’ adds Borremans.

‘The very final procedure we will soon take place as we are about to receive EDF’s Contrat d’Achat (Power Purchasing Agreement) for the power plant’ comments Jo Hanns Dieter Trutschler, Sales Director of the meeco Executive Board.

For further information visit: www.meeco.net