Hybrid Parks on the Rise: Swisspower Renewables Opens Solar Park in Brandenburg – Wind and Solar Share One Grid Connection

Wainsdorf (Germany) – Swisspower Renewables has opened the Prösen Solar Park in Wainsdorf, Brandenburg. The photovoltaic plant shares the grid connection point at the Gröditz substation with the existing Elsterwerda Wind Farm.

Combining wind and solar installations is becoming more important in project planning, with existing wind farms increasingly being expanded to include photovoltaic capacity. A study commissioned by the German Environment Agency (UBA) documents numerous planned hybrid projects. Based on a survey of market participants, the authors expect the number of implementations to rise.

Prösen Solar Park Expected to Generate 14.9 Million kWh of Electricity Annually

The Prösen Solar Park is located in the municipality of Röderland in the Elbe-Elster district. According to Swisspower Renewables, the plant has a capacity of 14.5 MWp and comprises more than 23,000 solar modules on an area of around 15 hectares. Expected annual output is about 14,900 MWh, or 14.9 million kWh.

The solar park uses the existing grid connection point of the Elsterwerda Wind Farm at the Gröditz substation. Swisspower Renewables thus operates two different generation technologies that can feed electricity into the grid via the same connection point.

Further Expansion Plans: Prösen-Nord, Battery Storage and Wind Repowering

Swisspower Renewables plans to develop the site step by step into a larger energy park. The plans include the Prösen-Nord extension project and, in the longer term, the integration of a battery storage system.

The existing Elsterwerda Wind Farm is also to be modernised through repowering. According to Swisspower Renewables, the shared grid connection forms a basis for these plans.

Swisspower Renewables is thus pursuing an approach in which existing energy infrastructure is used for several generation assets and expanded with additional components. Combining it with a battery storage system could in future create further options for managing feed-in. The storage system is not yet part of the solar park that has now opened.

UBA Study: 81 Wind-Solar Hybrid Projects in Planning – Existing Wind Farms Often the Starting Point

A study commissioned by the UBA and published in 2025 lists, as examples, 13 existing wind-solar hybrid projects with a combined installed capacity of around 596 MW.

The study also identified 81 ongoing project plans with commissioning scheduled for the period 2025 to 2027. These plans comprised around 1,700 MW of wind capacity and about 3,000 MWp of photovoltaic capacity. According to the UBA report, roughly three-quarters of the projects involve adding photovoltaics to existing wind farms or combining solar with the repowering of existing wind turbines. About one-quarter provide for joint new planning of both technologies.

The underlying research and surveys of market participants date from 2024. The study does not provide a complete inventory of all hybrid projects in Germany, and it cannot be used to determine how many of the projects originally scheduled for 2025 to 2027 have since been completed. However, the results show that using existing wind sites for additional photovoltaic capacity accounts for a substantial share of the projects recorded.

The regulatory framework also addresses shared grid connections. Under flexible grid connection agreements pursuant to Section 8a of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), grid operators and plant operators can contractually limit the permissible feed-in capacity at the grid connection point. This creates additional options for connecting generation assets of different technologies to existing grid capacity.

Source: IWR Online, Oct 10 2026