Prince Albert of Thurn and Taxis faces revolt over solar farm on estate
Prince Albert of Thurn and Taxis, hailed this year as the world’s youngest dollar billionaire, has ambitions to be the modern version of the Sun King: he is investing €115 million (£105 million) to transform his sprawling Bavarian estate into a vast solar farm.
But the locals are in revolt — they do not see why perfectly adequate cucumber and sugarbeet fields have to be plated in glass. Their champion is the Mayor of Feldkirchen, which borders the estate.
“I have nothing against solar energy as such,” Barbara Unger said. “It is the scale that is the problem. There will soon be nothing but a gleaming glass desert — 190 hectares of sun collectors instead of the ambling verdant fields of our home region.”
The neighbouring city council has approved the plan — after all, it stands to rake in €1 million a year in extra tax revenue on the back of the annual €18 million that the Prince is set to earn. But Ms Unger intends to force a referendum on the issue and bring about delays that will eat into the Prince’s profits and perhaps make him think again.
The local rebels have the backing of Martin Wölzmüller, the chairman of the Bavarian land conservation society, who is fighting against the “uncontrolled growth of these solar parks around our villages and cultural landscape”. There should, he argues, be limits set on the size of sun farmsand neighbours should be properly consulted. Other conservationists — while accepting the need to deal with climate change — stress that the potential for building solar panels on roofs should be fully exploited before creating massive sun parks in the countryside. The anti-panel movement coincides with growing dismay about the dubious aesthetics of wind farms.
So far Albert — the 26-year-old son of Princess Gloria, a former Harley Davidson-riding, devoutly Catholic punk rocker — has not exactly blazed a reputation as an ecological activist. His main passion is racing his Lamborghini Gallardo on the Le Mans track.
But the Thurn and Taxis family, which dates back to the 12th century, have always had a sharp eye on the balance sheet: they ran a stagecoach postal service for the Holy Roman Empire between the 16th and 18th centuries, and since then have been involved in the brewery business, private banking and property. Their latest business plan is the solar farm, which, if it succeeds, will be the largest on the planet.
Investing in solar energy is regarded as a sure bet by German financial consultants. The price of panels is dropping rapidly and the Government, under the Renewable Energies Act, is guaranteeing the price of electricity that is stored and released on to the market for the next 20 years. On the Prince’s estates, with land equivalent to 280 football fields, he should be able to deliver 63 million kW-hours of solar power every year, enough to fuel 18,000 households. The Prince looks set to earn €18 million a year, guaranteed for 20 years by the State.
“We’re presently calculating an 8 per cent return on investment,” the estate manager, Stephan Stehl, said.
The Renewable Energies Act has started a gold rush in Germany, with small-scale investors hurrying to insert solar panels before subsidies are scaled back in 2011. Farmers in particular are seizing the moment to convert low-profit pastureland into solar fields. In the village of Fürth near Landshut, every fourth household now produces solar energy.
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
