Mainz to invest EUR 200m in renewables

Mainz, the capital and largest city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, is planning to spend more than EUR 200 million (USD 195.94m) to expand renewables in the region in the next five to seven years through the municipal utility Mainzer Stadtwerke.

The investments will be made through Mainzer Stadtwerke's subsidiaries such as Kraftwerke Mainz-Wiesbaden AG (KMW) and Pionext Asset GmbH & Co. KG.

Project developer Pionext Asset, of which the municipal utility owns one-third, is planning to develop several new wind farms with a total of 21 wind turbines across Rhineland-Palatinate over the next five years. The investment costs are estimated at more than EUR 170 million with Mainzer Stadtwerke providing almost EUR 60 million of the total.

A further EUR 60 million will be spent on solar energy to support Pionext's plan to build up to 15 ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) parks across Germany with a total capacity of over 300 MW and investment costs of about EUR 180 million.

KMW is currently working on the planning and implementation of six wind farms with a total of 22 wind turbines in Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony which will require investments of around EUR 180 million by 2026. The energy company is also considering building four ground-mounted solar systems in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland with a combined capacity of more than 40 MW and investment costs of more than EUR 25 million.

In addition, the utility company is launching a funding programme to support the deployment of up to 500 additional PV systems on roofs in Mainz as well as solar panels on balconies, starting from January 1, 2023.

Mainzer Stadtwerke currently operates more than 120 wind turbines, 199 solar systems and 12 hydropower plants across Germany.

With the electricity from all wind and solar projects that are already being implemented or are currently being planned, the group would almost double its green electricity production of currently around 350 million kWh per year by 2030. This would not only be enough to meet the power consumption of all households in Mainz, but also for the majority of households in the city of Wiesbaden.

(EUR 1 = USD 0.980)

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