The voluntary Bürger-Energie Unterhaching is doubling its solar park on the A8 and can now supply 566 households with local electricity.
Unterhaching - Of course, there is a lot of idealism behind it.
Electricity with a “Dahoam guarantee” instead of from anywhere.
But the visionaries of the Bürger-Energie Unterhaching (BEU) cooperative, founded in 2012, are not lonely tinkerers who screw a photovoltaic system onto the roof and thus generate electricity for washing machines or televisions.
No, after various larger individual projects in and around Unterhaching, the BEU has now put its second solar park into operation.
The two systems on the A 8 together provide environmentally friendly electricity for 566 households every year.
A considerable dimension when you consider that BEU is organized on a voluntary basis.
“BEU has bundled an incredible amount of specialist knowledge and commitment.
These are people at work who understand their field, ”said Vice District Administrator Christoph Nadler (Greens) when the second solar park was commissioned.
Mayor Wolfgang Panzer (SPD) saw it similarly: "I am very proud of the BEU, because it shows us impressively how the energy transition can succeed at the local level."
The competitive environment is becoming more and more difficult
Despite all the joy about the successful mix of technical know-how and idealistic commitment, there were also critical and thoughtful tones during commissioning.
"The competitive environment is becoming more and more difficult," said BEU CEO Wolfgang Geisinger.
There are around 100 cooperatives across Bavaria, such as in Unterhaching, of which only around a quarter are still active.
Geisinger named bureaucratic and political hurdles as the reason - Unterhaching also felt them: After the first solar park, which has been supplying electricity since May 2018, the Renewable Energy Sources Act stipulated a two-year interval between the commissioning of the second system.
The logic behind it?
Geisinger put it “as a message” to politicians: “So far we have found an answer to all questions.
Fortunately, nobody forbids us to think more intelligently than the decision-makers in Berlin. ”In this sense, Nadler also pleaded for“ significantly more support from the federal and state governments in shaping the legal framework ”.
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Aerial view of the solar park on the A8: the one opened in 2018 on the left and the new one on the right;
in between - the light container - the re-injection point for geothermal energy.
© BEU
Large open-space photovoltaic systems as a goal
In order to remain competitive, according to Geisinger, the BEU must set itself the goal of large open-space photovoltaic systems in addition to small and medium-sized systems.
He named the magnitude of the two Unterhaching solar parks twenty times as large.
"We want to grow up, play in this league," says Geisinger.
In order to grow, the BEU has recently started offering lease models for companies and local energy supply via Bavariastrom.
Can all this still be done with a volunteer team?
"We can express a lot of idealism in a technical way - that distinguishes us from many other cooperatives," says supervisory board chairman Klaus Schulze-Neuhoff.
“Nevertheless, we are not dreamers, it will not go on forever like this.” The aim is therefore to “position ourselves in an economically sustainable way so that we can gradually supplement the volunteers with paid workers”.
Sheep graze between the solar panels
The grass between the solar modules is grazed by sheep, a shepherd from Siegertsbrunn is responsible.
Wolfgang Geisinger tells an anecdote from 2018: "At that time a sheep suddenly appeared on the autobahn - our fence was not good enough." From this they learned at the BEU that the sheep can no longer go out, but graze safely in the two solar parks .
Much to the delight of the strollers who even stick “animal love messages” on the fence, as Geisinger reports with a smile.
