Bern/Belp BE – Bern Airport Ltd. and energy supplier BKW want to build the largest ground-mounted photovoltaic plant in Switzerland. The solar park is to be built on 25 hectares of the airport site and produce electricity for 15,000 households. Now the project planning and approval phase begins.
Bern Airport Ltd. and BKW want to build Switzerland’s largest free-standing solar plant to date under joint sponsorship. For the BelpmoosSolar project, the airport is making available 25 hectares of grassy area on its fenced-in site, which cannot be used for any other purpose for planning and aviation law reasons.
There, according to a joint media release from both partners, the solar farm will generate about 35 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, 10 gigawatt hours of which will be generated in winter. This will reportedly be able to supply 15,000 households. The investment costs amount to around 30 million Swiss francs. This solar project “exemplifies how energy and transport infrastructures can coexist in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable way and make an important contribution to a zero-emissions economy,” Margarita Aleksieva, head of BKW’s Wind & Solar business unit, is quoted as saying.
As the chairman of the airport’s board of directors, Alexandre Schmidt, points out, this project promotes three other strategic goals of the airport in addition to aviation: “Growth via the shell use of the site, greening with the goal of CO2 neutrality by 2035, anchoring the airport in the region.” For BKW CEO Robert Itschner, it fits “excellently” with BKW’s strategy to further expand renewable electricity in the coming years, “especially with projects in Switzerland.”
The canton, the city of Bern and the municipality of Belp support the project. It now goes into the project planning and approval phase. Bern Airport and BKW are convinced “that these procedures can be carried out swiftly even without legal facilitation”. mm
