Planai under (sun)power A photovoltaic project on the roof of the main cable car valley station.

Energie Steiermark has equipped the roof of the main cable car valley station with photovoltaic systems for the Planai-Hochwurzen cable cars and will provide technical support for the system for 15 years. With a total investment of just under €200,000, a total output of almost 160 kWp was installed on the roof in the centre of Schladming.

The main focus of this joint project was to make the best possible use of the existing roof area in order to be able to generate a large part of the energy required for the valley station building of the Planai main cable car in a sustainable manner. 422 photovoltaic modules, each with an output of 375 watts, were installed on a roof area of 800 m².

On peak days, the system generates up to 1,000 kilowatt hours, which covers almost the entire electricity requirements of the office building during the warm season. Over the course of the year, around a quarter of the valley station's consumption can now be produced using solar energy.

"With this system, we now have three photovoltaic systems in operation on the Planai. We have set ourselves the goal of generating 10 to 15% of our total consumption on the Planai ourselves by 2030. There are many ideas for this, including photovoltaic islands on our storage ponds. In addition to the construction of photovoltaic systems, we are also setting an example in the field of environmental and energy management with our proven intelligent snow management system and initial trials with electric buses," says Georg Bliem, Managing Director of Planai-Hochwurzen-Bahnen.

The entire project was implemented by Energie Steiermark Kunden GmbH and its subsidiary E1, which also handled all funding and installation. For the Planai-Bahnen system, emphasis was placed on technically outstanding components and durable technology.