In late December Pakri Science and Industrial Park near the town of Paldiski commissioned a solar farm on a territory of around two football fields with the capacity sufficient to cover power consumption of almost 300 households.
The capacity of the brand-new solar farm is about 1 MW being the maximal solar farm capacity built with the European Union support and it is estimated to be equal to energy consumption of 300 households. “Energy generated by the farm can be consumed by the companies located in our industrial park via the Pakri power grid and we can also transfer excessive power to the power grid”, explained Enn Laansoo Jr., CEO of the industrial park.
The solar farm is located on the former waste land cleared fromconstruction and biological wastes that can be successfully recycled. We built the solar farm on concrete supports installed on artificial grass surface. We acquired it from Advanced Sports Installations Europe AS, which was awarded the title of the most environmentally-friendly Estonian company in 2017. This should enable the PAKRI solar farm to become, among other similar facilities, a solar farm with the smallest environmental footprint in Estonia”, mentioned Laansoo Jr. and added that this PAKRI solution offers a simple innovation in the construction of a solar farm, and might be a message to the others. PAKRI solar farm was erected in cooperation with Energiapartner OÜ responsible for the building part of the farm and Trapets OÜ was involved in civil construction. “Such cooperation enabled us to set up the solar farm within a very short time – it took only two months”, said Laansoo Jr. The construction of the solar farm was the next step in the course of the powerful development of the industrial park. PAKRI Science and Industrial Park having an 11-year successful business story and consisting currently of a unique in Europe green smart city, renewables production and green technology competence center intends to become the largest smart industrial city developed on private capital in Northern Europe by 2020. For the next enlargement phase the company is raising funds till the end of January via the Fundwise crowdfunding platform. The target is to raise 300,000 euros by crowdfunding. In the PAKRI Science and Industrial Park a unique smart industrial city is being permanently extended and enlarged on the area of 65 hectares. Currently 22 productions and over 35 green technology business service customers are active in more than 20,000 square meters industrial premises, development and testing facilities. In the park renewable energy is generated by a cogeneration plant, from the sun and wind. PAKRI is a member of the Paldiski Entrepreneurs’ Association, Smart City Cluster, Sustainable Property and Energy Cluster, Wind Technology Union and Wind Technology Cluster and already for three years the enterprise holds the silver quality level label of a responsible business, being the first responsible industrial park in Estonia.