In southern France, planes usually take off into a cloudless sky. A new 4.5-MW solar power plant at the Montpellier Airport generates power from sunlight while providing shade for parked vehicles.

The power plant, which was supplied by SolarWorld AG, has now been officially inaugurated with a ceremony, while an Airbus 380 flew over the airport in the Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées region at low altitude. The 16,000 modules are installed on carports that span 1,800 parking spaces. The large car parks are located adjacent to two solar charging stations for electric cars. With a rated power of 4.5 MW, the power plant in the sunny region near the Mediterranean coast is expected to produce an average annual yield of 6.2 million kWh.

According to SolarWorld, the project was a "special challenge": In order to ensure air traffic safety, the module surfaces could not reflect sunlight. To achieve this, the manufacturer changed the entire lamination process to equip the modules with thicker, non-reflective glass. According to the solar company from Bonn, this flexibility in fulfilling specific project requirements was one of the reasons why Energies du Sud chose to use modules from SolarWorld for the airport project. A consortium consisting of the companies Energies du Sud, La Compagnie du Vent (ENGIE Group), Caisse des Dépôts and the Montpellier Méditerranée Airport was set up to develop the project. SolarWorld's French subsidiary SolarWorld France SAS was commissioned to carry out the work.

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