Largest solar power plant in Aizkraukle municipality commissioned in Koknese parish

The largest solar power plant in Aizkraukle municipality – Kokneses SPP – has started producing green electricity. With an installed capacity of 5.3 MW, it will produce at least 5,200 MWh of renewable energy annually, supplying 2,100 households in Aizkraukle municipality. The project was developed by Merito Partners and Saules Energy with investment of EUR 4 million from Latvian investors and co-financing from ALTUM.

The new Kokneses SPP is directly connected to the distribution grid ensuring that generated electricity is available to residents and businesses. 

Leons Līdums, Chairman of Aizkraukle Municipality Council: “Historically, our municipality has provided consumers throughout Latvia with green electricity produced by the Pļaviņu HES. The opening of Kokneses SPP ranks Aizkraukle among those municipalities where a large proportion of the energy it consumes itself is produced directly by an industrial scale solar power plant. This is especially important in the summer months, when there is a lot of sunlight, but little water flowing in the Daugava River.”

Kokneses SPP is owned and operated by Merito Sustainable Energy Fund I, the largest solar power plant operator in Latvia, managed by Merito Partners. Experienced experts from the company Saules Energy have been supervising the project’s development.

Kokneses SPP was funded by Latvian investors and a EUR 2.1 million loan from European funds through ALTUM for corporate sustainability, with total investment of more than EUR 4 million. “Kokneses SPP project is an example of how sustainable projects can be developed in cooperation between local entrepreneurs and local government, attracting financial resources from European funds through ALTUM,” emphasizes Līga Mellēna, the Head of Enterprise Energy Efficiency Unit at ALTUM.

Mikus Janvars, co-founder and managing partner of Merito Partners: “The construction of six new SPPs in Zilupe, Brenguļi, Inčukalns, Carnikava, Kalkūne, now also in Koknese with a total capacity of more than 43 MW has been financed by more than more than 80 Latvian private and institutional investors. Two more solar power plants will be commissioned this autumn in Cēsis and Valmiera. In total, eight SPPs will generate at least 70,000 MWh of electricity annually, providing green energy to over 35,000 households in Latvia. Our cooperation partners and investors believe it is crucial to invest in the regional infrastructure and to rapidly increase the share of green energy in the Latvian economy. We have had an opportunity to implement this ambitious project in two years’ time thanks to the trust and support of our investors.

The construction work at the Kokneses SPP project, and the installation of 9,500 solar panels, was carried out by Latvian general contractor KL Systems with more than 13 years of experience in constructing industrial solar parks in Germany Italy, Spain, Great Britain and other parts of the world.

During the construction and operation of Kokneses SPP, significant attention has been paid to environmental protection and the preservation of biodiversity. The power plant’s fence has been raised to allow smaller animals to freely access the territory. There is a natural meadow on the territory which will be available for herds of local sheep. The solar panels located at the solar power plant will be recycled after their exploitation with components being reused.