They have turned multi-storey houses into a solar power station and are not worried about the price of electricity. The economic balance is satisfactory. In 2017, solar panels appeared on the roofs of 35 blocks of the Wroclaw-Poludnevsky housing cooperative. After more than a year of energy production, the installation of the panels was considered successful.
The housing cooperative of Wroclaw-Noon in 2017 made a decision on innovative investments. Solar panels were installed on the roofs of 35 blocks. The goal was to reduce the cost of electricity and improve the environment.
According to the RES World website, the Wroclaw experiment after more than one year of operation can be rated as successful. The amount of energy is 10 percent more than originally estimated. Through the use of panels, 557 tons of carbon dioxide did not enter the atmosphere.
“The economic balance is also satisfactory, so we will not stop there. We are planning to expand the power plant and further environmental projects, ”says Jozef Snezhek, President of Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa Wrocław-Południe.
They do not worry about electricity prices. Wroclaw’s investments turned out to be particularly accurate in light of the expected increase in electricity charges.
“The most important thing is that today, thanks to the production of their own energy, residents will not feel the rise in electricity prices. For example, if the market price rises by 40 percent, our residents will feel financially very comfortable, because prices will rise by only 10 percent for them, ”adds Snowballs. It is about the price of energy, which is used to power elevators, corridors and residential complexes.
Three thousand batteries installed on the roofs will reduce electricity bills for 15 thousand residents of the capital of Lower Silesia. The power plant capacity is about 0.75 MW. Renewable energy – 700,000 kWh annually – will be used to illuminate the common parts of the buildings, the elevator, the hydraulic harness, and the electrical equipment. The savings will be significant – the electricity bill will be lower by about 335 thousand zlotys. Investment in the project amounted to 4.2 million zlotys – 1.1 million US dollars. 2.5 million zlotys of the Environment Protection Fund transferred in the framework of the loan, 1.7 million zlotys as co-financing.
“This is a unique project on a national scale and, maybe, even in Europe, because no other city has such a large number of solar power plants. They were not created in the fields, but on the roofs of buildings. They did not require the construction of large energy networks. These panels are not visible from the outside, and we did not need to build transformer stations. Therefore, the project is neutral for the environment and urban space ”- Marek Dera, vice president of the housing and construction cooperative Wroclaw-Half-Day.
Wroclaw investments are not the only ones that the country has a right to be proud of. According to official data, the largest solar power station in Europe is being built there. 30,000 photovoltaic panels should provide 20 percent of the energy consumed by city residents.
Poland wants energy from the sun. The past year has been successful for the photovoltaic industry, and the prospects for the following years are positive. The Ministry of Energy wants to increase the capacity of solar power plants in Poland by 2020. They should produce 1000 MW.
According to the Polish Photovoltaic Society, 153 MW of total installed capacity in photovoltaics are currently installed in Poland, there are more than 11,200 household systems with a total capacity of over 62 MW, the largest of which was installed in the first half of 2016.
