Government-controlled energy company Holding Slovenske elektrarne is preparing to lay the foundation stone in Prapretno in two months for Slovenia’s biggest solar power plant.

HSE said it has obtained a building permit for a solar power plant with a peak capacity of just above 3 MW. The state-owned utility intends to lay the foundation stone on July 3 at the recultivated and closed part of the Prapretno pri Hrastniku non-hazardous waste landfill.

The country’s largest producer of electricity from renewable sources said it would be the largest photovoltaic plant in Slovenia. It added the Prapretno facility would start to deliver power to the grid “within a few months.”

First steps in massive deployment of photovoltaics

HSE’s subsidiary Dravske elektrarne Maribor (DEM) earlier revealed plans for a 30 MW solar power plant. However, according to the latest announcement, Prapretno is the first system of the kind to obtain a construction permit. Hidroelektrarne na spodnji Savi (HESS), controlled by HSE and GEN – also a government-controlled entity, is developing a 6 MW solar power project in the vicinity of its Brežice hydropower plant.

Prapretno is the first solar power plant project in Slovenia above 1 MW in size to obtain a construction permit

Existing photovoltaic systems in Slovenia are all under 1 MW. The Prapretno project will have an estimated annual output of 3.4 GW, matching the electricity needs of 800 average households in the country. It will consist of 6,902 modules of 440 W each, the company said.

Reviving electricity production without environmental damage

Project manager Nenad Trkulja asserted that HSE would later expand energy production at the site in the central part of Slovenia as the existing infrastructure can enable it. In the past, the environment in the area was burdened with the effects of the production of electricity from coal in Trbovlje and the associated mines, he stressed.

The company will generate power there but in an environmentally friendly way and without greenhouse gas emissions, Trkulja said.