Vinci Airports will launch a 14-hectare solar power plant at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport in France, which will cover 5,800 parking spaces at the airport.
With a capacity of 20MWp, the plant is projected to produce 24GWh of green electricity annually, equivalent to the consumption of 9,000 people. Its production will be injected into the grid to supply the neighboring communities, avoiding the emission of nearly 1,600 tons of CO2 per year.
The project has been validated by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition as the winner of the latest call for tenders issued by the French Energy Regulation Commission. This enables the launch of the construction work in the autumn of 2023, for commissioning in the summer of 2024. The project has been awarded to a consortium comprising Neoen and SunMind (Vinci Concessions’ photovoltaic subsidiary), which will design, finance, build and operate the plant until 2047.
Nicolas Notebaert, CEO of Vinci Concessions and president of Vinci Airports, said, “Airports are places of opportunity for photovoltaic production, which is why Vinci Airports has been committed to developing solar power plants for several years now. This allows us to decarbonize our own consumption, but also to contribute to the energy transition of the territories, by injecting the electricity we produce into the network, as we will soon do in Lyon.”
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