Germany's new solar park leaves a corridor wide open — so the wildlife can still walk through

Most solar parks are rows of panels and little else. Gundelsheim, in Germany's Baden-Württemberg, was planned the other way round. Its 110,000 panels spread across 55 hectares (about 136 acres), but a wide open corridor cuts through the site so animals can still cross it, strips of wildflowers grown from local seed feed the insects that live nearby, and an old fire pond — once purely for emergencies — has been restored as a home for native plants and amphibians. The park's batteries are a mix, too: twelve used Audi electric-car batteries alongside Europe's largest sodium-ion storage unit, a kind made from common materials rather than scarce ones. Opened by energy company EnBW with the state's environment minister, the 58-megawatt park should generate enough electricity for about 30,000 households — on land the town itself owns, so Gundelsheim earns rent and tax from it too.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: infrastructure build