Energie Steiermark has equipped the roof area of the main cable car valley station with photovoltaic systems for Planai-Hochwurzen-Bahnen and will provide technical support for the system for 15 years. With a total investment of almost 200,000 euros, a total output of almost 160 kWp was installed on the rooftop in the center of Schladming.
The main focus of this joint project was to make the best possible use of the existing roof area in order to be able to generate a large part of the energy required for the valley station building of the Planai main cable car in a sustainable manner. 422 photovoltaic modules with 375 watts each were installed on a roof area of 800 m².
On peak days, the system reaches up to 1,000 kilowatt hours, which is almost the entire electricity requirement of the office building during the warm season. Over the entire year, around a quarter of the valley station's consumption can now be self-produced with solar energy.
"With this system, we now have three photovoltaic systems in operation on the Planai. By 2030, we have set ourselves the goal of being able to generate 10 to 15% of our total self-consumption on the Planai ourselves. The ideas for this are diverse and go as far as photovoltaic islands on our storage ponds. In addition to the construction of photovoltaic systems, we are also setting an example in the area of environmental and energy management with our proven intelligent snow management system and initial test trials with electric buses," says Dir. Georg Bliem, managing director of Planai-Hochwurzen-Bahnen.
The overall implementation was carried out by Energie Steiermark Kunden GmbH and its subsidiary E1, which also took over the entire conveyance handling and installation. In the installation for the Planai lifts, emphasis was placed on technically outstanding components and durable technology.
