Energy Axpo puts France's largest rooftop solar plant into operation

A new Axpo solar power plant has been put into operation in the northern French town of Beauvais. It is the largest rooftop solar power plant in France, the Swiss electricity company announced on Monday.

The solar plant of Axpo subsidiary Urbasolar is located in Beauvais, around 80 kilometers north of Paris, and was installed on an industrial roof. With an area of 6.2 hectares and an installed capacity of 12.8 megawatts peak, it is the largest plant of its kind in France.

The annual production of 13 gigawatt hours of electricity corresponds to the annual electricity consumption of around 3000 French households, according to Axpo. Such large-scale plants make an important contribution to the energy transition and security of supply in Europe, it said.

Urbasolar has already built more than 700 large-scale solar plants, in addition to roof installations, also on open spaces, in greenhouses, as agrivoltaics in agriculture or floating on water surfaces. In April, an even larger system was put into operation at Disneyland Paris: A parking lot area of 20 hectares was covered with solar panels, which provide 36 gigawatt hours of green electricity per year.

SDA