OMV the international, integrated oil, gas and chemicals company headquartered in Vienna, has started up its ground-mounted photovoltaic plant with solar tracking in Lobau – Vienna, Austria. OMV has invested around €4.5m in the facility.
On an industrial plot owned by OMV measuring 6 hectares a ground-mounted photovoltaic plant with solar tracking and output of 5,590 kWp has been installed. Compared to a fixed installation, a solar-tracking system – for example, one that follows the position of the sun, increases sustainable electricity production by about 10 percent.
In addition, the solar panels are equipped with bifacial modules. These are “two-sided” cells that can use the reflected light also via the backside of the panel. This increases production efficiency by another 5 percent compared to single-face solar cells.
A total of nearly 10,000 photovoltaic modules and more than 50 inverters were installed. The renewable electricity is fed directly into the OMV grid and covers with 7 GWh around 45 percent of the annual energy demand of the OMV Lobau tank farm. This is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 1,800 households and ensures CO2 savings of around 2,100 tonnes per year.
“With this solar-tracked photovoltaic plant, we are able to sustainably cover another part of our energy consumption with solar energy and reduce our CO2 intensity. My thanks go to our project team for the rapid and impeccable realization of this environmental project,” said Martijn van Koten, OMV executive board member for refining.
For more information visit www.omv.com
