Slovenia’s largest solar power plant comes online as part of hybrid system

HESS’s 6 MW solar power plant is in trial production, integrated with the company’s Brežice hydroelectric plant. It is the biggest facility of the kind in Slovenia.

The Brežice hydropower plant in Slovenia, on the border with Croatia, got its fourth unit. But it’s not a hydroelectric generator. The facility is now a hybrid power plant as its operator, Hidroelektrarne na spodnji Savi (HESS), said it built a 6 MW photovoltaic system and combined the two sources. It is located on the sediment landfill alongside the reservoir.

The new solar power plant is the biggest in Slovenia. The company told Energetika.net it is also the only one in the country that is connected to the 110 kV network.

Annual output is estimated at 6.8 GWh

The FEBR-D3 photovoltaic unit ensures greater flexibility in the production of electricity, according to HESS, which is controlled by state-owned utilities HSE and GEN. Annual output is estimated at 6.8 GWh.

The facility was completed in November. It received a temporary grid connection one month later. HESS revealed that it expects the start of regular operation within two months. The Brežice hydropower plant, commissioned in 2017, has a capacity of 47.4 MW.

The company is working on plans to add battery storage to its units. It runs hydropower plants on the lower part of the river Sava in Slovenia. The country’s biggest photovoltaic unit so far was HSE’s Prapretno, with 3 MW, though it is envisaged to be expanded to as much as 13 MW. Another hydropower plant operator, DEM, completed the first part of the solar park at its Zlatoličje facility.

The Brežice hydropower plant, commissioned in 2017, has a capacity of 47.4 MW

As for the rest of the region that Balkan Green Energy News covers, Albania’s state-owned operator KESH is developing a project for a complex hybrid power plant centered on its Vau i Dejës hydroelectric facility. It has already built a solar power plant on the dam and wants to install a floating solar power plant on the reservoir. The possibility to add a wind power plant is also under consideration.

In Turkey, the Lower Kaleköy hybrid system consists of a hydroelectric unit of 510 MW and an 80 MW photovoltaic plant. Its operator Cengiz Holding wants to build and integrate a wind power plant as well.