Industrial, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  February 19, 2019

Audi Hungaria to install Europe’s biggest rooftop PV

Audi announced it will build a solar energy park on the roofs of the two logistics centers of its plant in Győr, Hungary. Covering about 160,000 square meters, this will create Europe’s largest photovoltaic system. The system will have a peak output of 12 megawatts. Construction will begin in August and generation is expected to start at the beginning of 2020.

“We are committed to the economical use of resources and therefore want to keep the environmental impact of our production as low as possible,” said Achim Heinfling, Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi Hungaria Zrt. Noting that approximately 70% of Audi Hungaria’s heat requirements are already covered by climate-neutral, geothermal energy, he said, “Our goal is to have completely CO₂-neutral plant operation in the future. With the construction of the solar-cell park, we are now taking a further step to achieve this in terms of power supply.”

The project will be built in partnership with E.ON Hungaria, which will operate the system. Annual output from the 35,000 solar cells will be more than 9.5 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity, saving about 6,000 tons of CO₂ from being released into the air.

 “We are working consistently towards greater sustainability along the entire value chain,” said Peter Kössler, Board of Management Member for Production and Logistics at AUDI AG. “By 2030, we want all our production sites to be climate neutral. The use of renewable energies is an important lever for this.”