Customer reference - Solarys

The Photovoltaic Park of Malalbergo, the largest photovoltaic installation in Tuscany, began operation in February 2011 over an area of approximately 26 hectares in the municipality of Cortona. A power of approximately 10.5 MW is installed, equivalent to the requirements of roughly 5500 households, and the consequent reduction in CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is equivalent to 7200 tons / year.

Only one month after beginning work, the “Romani” Ministerial Decree was published, which was literally a bolt from the blue. The Decree brought forward the grid connection deadline in order to benefit from the incentives, anticipating by three months the date of completion of the work originally planned by Solarys. 

The implications were serious: without the incentives, the overall profitability would be badly jeopardised. Having overcome the initial temptation to abandon the project, the time schedule (GANTT) was completely revised and drastically accelerated. Several suppliers had to be changed because not all of them were able to anticipate delivery of the materials by such a large margin. 

The gamble paid off, however: the installation was connected to the grid two days before the deadline established by the Decree, three months prior to the date originally fixed for completion of the works.

Several manufacturers were willing to accept the drastic reduction in production times; these included ABB, which involved Marostica factory (298 combiners), the Frosinone factory (moulded-case switches TMax T8, 2500 A), the S. Palomba factory (modular circuit breakers S 200 and modular equipment for DIN rail – relays, contactors and timers) and the Garbagnate Monastero factory for the switchboards assembling.

This partnership to solve an extremely delicate situation consolidated relationship between Solarys and ABB, which is now an automatic reference for all new projects, also abroad. The lesson learnt from the experience was not to be tempted by opportunities which are apparently advantageous in terms of price but do not take into account even more important values, such as the time and effort spent by the sales personnel and ABB’s reliability, flexibility, speed of reaction and custom component capability.