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PRAPRETNO SOLAR POWER PLANT EXCEEDS EXPECTED PRODUCTION WITHIN ONE YEAR OF OPERATION

The Prapretno Solar Power Plant (Prapretno SPP) is currently celebrating its first anniversary. Since the opening, i.e. from April 8, 2022, it has operated reliably and produced 3,507 MWh or 5.7% more electricity than planned, which is sufficient for the annual supply of approximately 900 Slovenian households.

The Prapretno SPP was the first solar power plant in Slovenia with a capacity greater than 1 MW to receive an operating permit, and is still the second largest solar power plant in Slovenia. It has a great symbolic meaning for the HSE Group and the local environment: it is located on a 120-metre-high landfill for waste products from the combustion of brown coal in the Trbovlje Thermal Power Plant, which was permanently shut down in 2014. “With the Prapretno Solar Power Plant, we revived electricity production in a degraded area, and helped Zasavje enter a more environmentally friendly energy future,” says Dr. Tomaž Štokelj, Managing Director of HSE.

The Prapretno SPP is entirely the result of the experience, knowledge and work of the experts of the HSE Group companies: the engineering company HSE Invest, which carried out the entire process of obtaining a building and operating permit, and the sheltered workshop HTZ, which carried out design, supply and assembly of the entire solar power plant, participated in its construction. On the plateau above Hrastnik, everything is already prepared for its expansion. For the Prapretno SPP 2 project, the procedures for obtaining a building permit are already underway, and at the end of 2022, the Municipality of Hrastnik published a decision in the Official Gazette of Zasavje on the preparation of a municipal detailed plan for the Prapretno SPP 3, regarding which the first debate is expected at the municipal council of the Municipality of Hrastnik in April along with public consultation. At the moment, 6,746 solar modules and 25 inverters have been installed at the Prapretno SPP location on an area of 34,000 m2, and after the completion of all three phases, a total of around 22,000 modules or as many as 82 inverters, which convert electricity from direct current to alternating current, will be installed.

“In HSE, we will fully exploit the potential of Prapretno for the utilisation of electricity from the sun. The total installed capacity of the Prapretno SPP after the completion of all three phases is expected to be almost 10 MW, which is just the beginning of the HSE Group’s extensive investment cycle in new renewable energy sources. The production portfolio of the HSE Group is thus accelerating the goal of decarbonisation of the energy sector, and as the bearers of Slovenia’s green transition, we will continue to direct all our projects towards environmentally friendly electricity production and the development of solutions and services for the green transition,” emphasises Dr. Tomaž Štokelj, Managing Director of HSE.