RWE said it has brought several large-scale solar farms online along the A44n motorway in North Rhine-Westphalia, adding 86 megawatts peak of capacity on recultivated land at the Garzweiler opencast mine.
The arrays comprise around 141,000 solar modules and will generate enough electricity to supply the equivalent of 27,700 German households, the company said. The sites are located to the west and east of the motorway between Bedburg and Juchen.
Katja Wunschel, CEO of RWE Renewables Europe & Australia, said the commissioning demonstrates the group’s ongoing build-out of solar generation. “The commissioning of the solar farms alongside the motorway shows that we are consistently driving forward the expansion of our solar portfolio,” she said. “And we aren’t done there yet. Next year, we will add several thousand solar modules to the project.”
A second construction phase of 19.9MWp is planned for next year, involving more than 30,600 additional modules on recultivated land in the municipality of Juchen, with commissioning expected by the end of 2026.
The company is also building the Bedburg 3 wind farm nearby, adding nine turbines with about 60MW of capacity. Dr. Lars Kulik, CTO lignite at RWE Power, said the combination of solar and wind on former mining land illustrates ongoing regional transformation. “The solar and wind projects on recultivated land along the A44n emphasise that structural change and the expansion of renewables in the Rhenish lignite area are going hand in hand,” he said.
Kulik added that RWE will continue to use available space near its opencast mines for renewable energy development. RWE now operates nine solar projects in the region, including four with integrated battery storage, and is planning additional sites such as the Manheimer Bucht solar farm, scheduled to reach 17.2MWp when completed at the end of 2026.
