Brno will soon be producing renewable energy from photovoltaic solar panels to be installed on city buildings later this year. The gradual investment project aims to create a solar power network which will supply electricity to the citizens of Brno. Photo credit: Freepik / Illustrative Photo.
Brno, Feb 6 (BD) – A significant new step towards a sustainable Brno this year will be the installation of solar panels on the roofs of buildings in the city. The CZK 1.2 billion project was announced this week by First Deputy Mayor Petr Hladík (KDU-CSL) and Filip Leder, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the municipal company SAKO Brno.
“We consider the roofs of buildings to be the optimal place for the installation of solar panels. At the moment, we have selected over 100 buildings with an area of 120,000 square meters, the size of 15 football fields. Last year, in cooperation with the Czech Globe scientific institute and experts from BUT, we created an interactive exposure map that we can use to evaluate which roofs are most suitable for the production of renewable energy. Our goal is to create a virtual power plant which any Brno citizen will be able to supply with electricity. We want to set purchase prices so that it really pays for people and companies to invest in photovoltaic and photothermal technologies,” said Hladík.
City-owned buildings, buildings assigned to city districts and municipal company buildings will have priority for the photovoltaic panels. In the future, installations are intended for brownfields and suitable private entities, and the city wants to include private owners and associations in the scheme.
“The total output of the panels on the roofs of Brno should reach 40 MWh, while we estimate the expected annual electricity production from solar panels supported by the city to be around 43 GWh, which will bring annual emission savings of at least 36,000 tons of CO2,” said Leder, who is responsible for the development of the photovoltaic system.
Additionally, the project includes the construction of an electrode boiler as well as heat accumulators in the SAKO Brno complex on Jedovnická. Individual production sources will connect to the aggregation unit and enter the distribution system i.e. the city’s “solar power plant”, though most of the energy will be used on site and continuing energy flows will feed into the grid and be traded.
“With this project, we will combine the advantages of photovoltaics with our waste-to-energy plant. As a result, the City of Brno will become a leader in renewable energy, without burdening the distribution and transmission system,” explained Leder, adding that “photovoltaic power plant projects on unused roofs of buildings do not occupy valuable areas of greenery or arable land.”
The implementation of this project will begin later in the year, with around half of the investment being financed from subsidy programs of the Ministry for the Environment, particularly the Modernization Fund.
