The world’s largest solar park may open in Serbia until 2015. It would be twice as big as currently the biggest such park, which is situated in California.
The Ministry of Spatial Planning of Serbia and Luxembourg-based Securum Equity Partners have signed an agreement on the construction of solar panels in the south of Serbia, on an area spanning as many as 3,000 hectares, and the value of that investment is close to USD 3 billion, Alo daily reports.
Bojan Djuric, the state secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, says that the company’s representatives have come to them with an offer to build 1,000 MW solar panels in the south of Serbia.
– If this project is implemented, Serbia will get the world’s biggest solar park, twice as big as the one in California, with the total capacity of 500 megawatts, which is the largest of the kind at the moment. This project sounds good, but we have only just started the negotiations, and we still need to discuss the conditions. We have so far only signed an agreement on cooperation, which is not a legally binding document – Djuric told Alo.
People at Securum Equity Partners confirmed for eKapija that they had signed a legally non-binding Framework Agreement on 17 November 2011, representing an “expression of the readiness of both sides to carry out activities aimed at quick and successful implementation of the project.”
– The investment project under the name of “Neper Solar Park Incubator – Serbia” will be implemented by means of a special financial instrument – Neper Fund, which is why it does not require any form of financial support or some other type of subventions from the Serbian government. That means that the project will be developed in the way that guarantees its financial self-sustainability without taking into account any type of government support regarding the price of the generated electrical energy – reads a statement issued by the company Securum Equity Partners.
This company announced that it had decided to implement such project in Serbia for several reasons.
– State authorities have expressed readiness and understanding for the presented project. Serbia has a favorable geographic position, which is very important to us since our primary aim is to export generated electricity, and the Serbian electric grid is well-connected with neighboring countries. What is also significant is that solar radiation is favorable during the whole year.
People at Securum Equity Partners added that Serbia was a country rich in well-trained professionals.
Representatives of this company stressed that the land they planned to use for the project was not going to be an agricultural land, thus guaranteeing the least possible influence on the environment.
