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Approximately 60 million kWh of electricity is being generated by the biggest solar park in Scandinavia – sufficient energy to provide green power to around 30,000 private households. Situated in Lerchenborg in Denmark, the solar park has been connected to the grid since December 2015. It was built by the project engineering company and energy supplier WIRSOL, based in Waghäusel, Germany. But it isn’t just the successful completion of what is the Baden-Württemberg company’s biggest solar park to date that offers cause for celebration. The photovoltaic plant is also the first project, since WIRSOL’s fresh start in the year 2013, for which the project planners have obtained secure financial backing for 15 years from Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) – the Baden-Württemberg federal state bank.
“We are very pleased at being able to finance such a big project in partnership with LBBW,’ says Peter Vest, Managing Director of WIRSOL. Over an area of more than 80 hectares, on the Baltic coast at about an hour’s distance from Copenhagen, the company has constructed 248,730 solar modules and around 1750 inverters, making it the biggest solar park in Scandinavia. ‘Past experience has shown that by working with LBBW we can set up successful and customised financing arrangements for our projects.”
LBBW has been involved in the area of renewable energy for many years. The bank has structured and financed numerous projects both within Germany and abroad. ‘This is LBBW’s first financing of a photovoltaic project in Denmark. The customer-specific and holistic transaction comprises not just bridge financing and financing to completion, it also incorporates currency hedging arrangements and a precisely defined foreign currency and cash management structure,’ says Andreas Sahl, head of LBBW’s Large Corporates division.
WIRSOL sees the solar park in Lerchenborg as being just the curtain-raiser for many further projects in its European target markets. "The plant on the Baltic coast gives a good impression of what we are capable of as a company," Peter Vest explains, and goes on: "The Lerchenborg project is clear confirmation that WIRSOL is admirably set up to meet the future – both in its own right as a company, and on the basis of its partners and backers."