By investing more than one million euros, the company SIA “Baltic Container Terminal” , operating in the port of Riga, has built a new solar panel power plant, which in the future will replace part of the electricity amount, necessary for the company’s operation, with green energy. 1974 solar panels have been installed on the 11,600 m² of the warehouse roof located on the company’s territory. The total capacity of the inverters of the power plant is 0.875 MW and the power plant is able to provide for average consumption of 250 Latvian households with the produced energy. The new solar park was opened on September 6 in the presence of the BCT shareholders from the Maltese holding “Mariner” and the management of the Freeport of Riga.
Within the framework of the green electricity project, a new transformer substation has been built and commissioned at the BCT. It currently has one 1000 kVA transformer, still there is also room for a second transformer, as the company’s development plans include the construction of another solar park.
“I am glad that we have been far-sighted enough and in 2017, when we started designing our new warehouse, we incorporated roof loads into the project for the future installation of solar panels. We signed a contract for the construction of a solar park in early February 2022, even before the geopolitical turmoil and the energy price hikes. Today we are satisfied with our successful planning – the energy we produce makes our terminal more cost-efficient and we can look more confidently to the future. At the same time, we are becoming greener and more environmentally friendly. In the future, we plan to double the production of green energy by building another state-of-the-art general cargo warehouse together with a solar panel park,” said the BCT CEO Gerard Sammut at the new power plant opening event.
The BCT solar panel park is the second green energy production plant that has started its operation in the territory of the Port of Riga. The company SIA “Kronospan Riga” already operates a solar power plant with an installed solar panel capacity of 4.61 MW on the area of about 3.3 ha, providing energy for the company’ s needs. The green energy project has been launched by the port company “Riga Universal Terminal” (RUT), where a solar panel park with a planned capacity of 250 kW is being designed to be located on the roof of a company’s building.
“It is very gratifying that more and more green energy projects are being implemented in the {ort of Riga. Every green investment is not only a step towards the European Green Deal, but also a step closer to an energy-independent, more efficient and safer port. In addition, the port’s clients today prefer “greener transport corridors”, therefore the availability of green energy at our port terminals makes the Port of Riga much more competitive for new freight and investment projects,” emphasized Ansis Zeltiņš, the Freeport of Riga CEO.
SIA “Baltic Container Terminal” is the largest and the only specialized container terminal in the Port of Riga. In 2022, with a record cargo turnover of 326 thousand TEUs, it was the second largest stevedoring company of the port. According to the data of 7 months of 2023 the BCT has become the largest merchant in the port of Riga with a 17% share in the total amount of cargo handled in the port. The company is characterized by targeted investments in the terminal infrastructure and increasing its efficiency. Over the past five years, a total of more than 16.2 million euros has been invested in the terminal.
