Laax says yes to high-alpine solar plant at Vorab mountain station
Repower is planning to build a high-alpine solar plant at the Vorab mountain station in collaboration with the municipality of Laax, the Weissen Arena Group and Flims Electric. The Laax municipal assembly approved the project yesterday.
The high-alpine solar plant will be built east of the glacier tongue near the Vorab mountain station. Around 20,000 modules are planned on an area of around 150,000 square metres. With a production capacity of around 7.5 MW, they will supply almost 12 GWh per year, which corresponds to the annual consumption of more than 2,200 households.
The voters of Laax approved the Vorab high-alpine solar project at the municipal assembly on 13 June. The next step is to install a test system in autumn 2023. In this way, the project team wants to ensure that the technology used can withstand the harsh conditions on the Vorab at almost 2,600 metres above sea level and that it will produce the calculated energy yield, especially in the winter months.
The Vorab solar plant is planned in an area that is already used for tourism. An environmental impact assessment is currently being carried out. The landowner of the site is the political municipality of Laax. The Graubünden energy provider Repower and the Weisse Arena Group will be the owners of the alpine solar plant, and Flims Electric is planned as the project developer.
Local solar energy for mountain railways
As the owner of the mountain railways, the Weisse Arena Group will be an important consumer of local solar energy. The Vorab solar plant brings the Weisse Arena Group one step closer to its vision of making the destination of Flims Laax Falera the first self-sufficient Alpine destination to cover 100 percent of its energy needs from climate-friendly, regional sources. In the 2022 autumn session, the federal parliament created the conditions for the rapid expansion of ground-mounted PV systems with high winter production with the “urgent federal law on the short-term provision of a secure electricity supply in winter”.