Family-owned PÜSPÖK, which operates more than 100 wind farms and several large photovoltaic parks, is one of Austria’s leading private producers of electricity from renewable sources. The company has recently opened a super-hybrid power plant in Austria that combines wind power, photovoltaics and battery storage in a project that is not only one of the most innovative but also the largest of its kind in Europe.
The site is ideal, set in a landscape of flat fields and productive air currents (average wind volumes in the depths of eastern Austria are said to be greater even than in the coastal regions of the North Sea). The bottom line is that these are extremely good conditions for locating photovoltaic and wind farms and thus for producing green electricity.
Harvesting wind and solar energy in parallel while also connecting battery storage is an innovative, cost-saving and future-orientated approach, and this combination also promises flexibility, stability and safety for producing and consuming electricity. Each technology has different peak periods for power production (the sun delivers lots of energy during the summer in particular, while wind is more prevalent in the winter months) and the yield can also vary wildly over the course of the day. This is when the large battery array comes into play, storing energy as it is produced and releasing it when it is required, with the intention of guaranteeing a stable a constant electricity supply.
A portion of the total energy output of Austria’s super-hybrid power plant is supplied by numerous wind turbines, but the rest comes from a 50-hectare photovoltaic array. PÜSPÖK was at pains to ensure the area was not sealed off and inaccessible, and therefore followed the idea of ‘agri-photovoltaics’; the PV modules have been installed such that the space beneath can be used for agriculture – which in this case means pasture land for 120 grazing sheep and 90 lambs. Environmental protection and biodiversity will thus make the power generated in the super-hybrid power plant even greener.
PÜSPÖK has delivered one of Austria’s first privately initiated wind park projects and is hoping to make further active contributions in transforming energy systems, including on an international level; the hybrid park is part of REPower EU, a European project intended to ease Europe’s dependency on oil and gas, accelerate the development of renewable energy sources and provide targeted support for the private sector in energy transition.
