Technology Gone Wild

An extraordinary solar park is being built in the Geiseltal valley between Leipzig and Halle, where energy generation and agricultural use are not mutually exclusive. The Sonnenquelle solar park is an Agri-PV system; the modules are installed in such a way that chickens and cattle can be kept under and between them. This ‘as well as’ is part of a unique integration concept into the landscape. The area under the modules can recover, provide shade for the farm animals and at the same time be used for electricity production.

Not only functionally, but also visually, ‘die Sonnenquelle’ blends into its surroundings so that it can continue to be used by residents as a local recreation area. Paths, grazing areas and flowering meadows are integrated into the natural surroundings. The solar modules are hidden from direct view in a variety of ways through new planting.

We developed a web app for Agrar-Verwaltungsgesellschaft Geiseltal mbH that communicates this unique concept to citizens and visitors. The usual bird’s eye view visualisation of large solar parks proved to be unsuitable for making the integration into the landscape tangible. We therefore built 360-degree panoramas for 6 locations spread across the site. They show citizens what can be seen of the solar panels from a visitor’s perspective with and without natural screening walls. The planted vegetation can be switched on and off by users in the web app.

In order to offer visitors to the local recreation area a view of the future unobstructed by technology, the application is web-based. This means that no additional app needs to be installed – which is often a barrier to widespread adoption. New technical ground was also broken in order to fulfil the architects’ demand for truth in the team: We created the 3D visualisation hard-core on the basis of real data from the terrain topography.