- France’s VSB Energies Nouvelles has started building a 9 MW solar power plant on a former gravel and sand pit, clay and kaolin extraction site in Druelle Balsac, southern France.
The project was originally supposed to have a capacity of just 5 MW. “The project participated in a tender held by the CRE in 2016,” Jérémie Baccar, PV development manager for VSB Energies Nouvelles, told pv magazine France. “Then, during the development phase between 2016 and 2021, technological developments allowed us to almost double the installed power of the park, without changing the surface area.”
He said that about 30% of this increase resulted from the evolution of the solar modules, which reached higher power outputs.
In its final configuration, the project also benefited from its optimized layout and the inter-row spacing of the modules – a densification that facilitated a power gain of 55%.
“Important work has been carried out by our development teams to find the optimum between the shading resulting from the bringing together of the modules due to narrower rows and the gain in production obtained thanks to the increase in the number of panels on the park,” said Baccar.
VSB currently has 2 GW of solar under development. Its projects include floating arrays, agrivoltaic installations, PV carports, and large rooftop solar projects.
Author: Gwénaëlle Deboutte
This article was originally published in pv magazine and is republished with permission.
