By 2021, Axpo’s subsidiary Urbasolar will build three solar plants in France to produce solar power for the Paris airports. The plants will cover around 10 percent of the electricity needed by the airports Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Le Bourget.
The three plants will be located in the French departments of Gard, Var and Charente. Urbasolar will install solar modules with a total capacity of 40 megawatts on an area of 40 hectares. The plants will produce around 47 gigawatt hours of electricity per year. This is equivalent to around 10 percent of the total electricity requirement of the Paris airports Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly and Le Bourget – or around half of the electricity required for airport lighting.
Buyer of the solar power is ADP Group (Aéroports de Paris). It will purchase the electricity from the three plants over a period of 21 years. The ADP Group aims to obtain its electricity entirely from renewables by 2030 at the latest. “Companies are increasingly setting specific sustainability goals and are relying on renewable energy to achieve them”, says Christoph Sutter, Head of Renewables at Axpo. “With Urbasolar, Axpo is ideally positioned in the area of long-term PPAs.”
Urbasolar has been an independent subsidiary of Axpo since 2019 and is one of the leading companies in the solar energy sector in France. The company is based in Montpellier and currently operates solar plants with a total output of 350 megawatts. Further plants with a capacity of around 1700 megawatts are in the pipeline.
About Axpo:
Axpo is Switzerland’s largest producer of renewable energy and an international leader in energy trading and the marketing of solar and wind power. 5,000 employees combine experience and expertise with a passion for innovation. Axpo develops innovative energy solutions for its customers based on state-of- the-art technologies in over 30 countries in Europe and the USA.
