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XXL solar thermal energy for Leipzig's heating network

Germany's largest solar thermal system takes shape - 13,200 collectors installed in Leipzig

16.06.2025

Source: E & M powernews

According to Leipziger Stadtwerke, Germany's largest solar thermal plant is being built in the west of Leipzig. Another milestone has now been reached.

13,200 collectors make up the solar thermal plant that Leipziger Stadtwerke is building in the Leipzig district of Lausen-Grünau. The last of these collectors has now been delivered and installed by the general contractor Ritter XL from Dettenhausen. Commissioning of the plant - the largest in Germany, according to Stadtwerke - is planned for early 2026. It is being built on a total area of 14 hectares, which corresponds to around 20 soccer pitches, with 65,208 square meters of collector surface.

XL 19/49 evacuated tube collectors with CPC (Compound Parabolic Concentrator) mirrors from Ritter XL Solar's "AquaSystem" were installed. Their gross collector surface area is 4.94 square meters each, the light entry area of the collector is 4.5 square meters. The 72.4 kilogram collectors are connected underground and above ground with pipes and work with pure water as the heat transfer medium. The control technology installed is intended to enable fully automatic control of the system according to the solar radiation and flexible adaptation to the changing conditions in Leipzig's district heating network.

"The project is an important part of our future concept, in which we combine renewable, innovative and conventional heat supply technologies," says Erik Jelinek, Project Manager Energy Plant Generation at Leipziger Stadtwerke.

In future, the 41 MW plant will feed around 26 million kWh of heat into the grid each year. This will cover around 20 percent of Leipzig's daily heat requirements in summer. According to Leipziger Stadtwerke, the plant will make a significant contribution to decarbonizing the heat supply by saving the environment around 7,160 tonnes of climate-damaging CO2 per year. And because the collector tables are 20 centimetres higher than usual, only the pile-driving profiles result in sealing - which is extremely low at 0.01 percent sealing in relation to the collector area. "In combination with additional planting and sowing as well as an ecologically sustainable maintenance concept, the biodiversity on the area can be increased," says Guido Wimmer, project manager at Ritter XL Solar.

Author: Katia Meyer-Tien