Partner prospecting in NRW — solar, biogas, and “hybrid” sites¶

Goal: Build a prioritized outreach list for Christine’s network / cold outreach. This is not a finished list in the repo (data is large, personal data must be handled under DSGVO, and sites change daily).

Can we “generate a list of solar + biogas farmers in NRW”?¶

Solar-only and biogas-only — yes (public register)¶

Germany’s Marktstammdatenregister (MaStR) (Bundesnetzagentur) lists generating units. You can filter:

Bundesland: Nordrhein-Westfalen
Technologie: z. B. Photovoltaik; Biomasse (includes Biogas as subset in practice)

Practical paths:

Web UI CSV export — Erweiterte öffentliche Einheitenübersicht — set filters, export CSV (suitable for hundreds to low thousands of rows if the UI allows).
Full bulk download — MaStR Datendownload — XML dumps (large); use tooling below.
open-mastr (Python) — Documentation · PyPI · OpenEnergyPlatform/open-MaStR — downloads/parses MaStR into queryable tables so you can filter Bundesland and technology.

Same operator with both solar and biogas — partially automatable¶

MaStR links units to Marktakteure (legal/market participants). A useful heuristic:

Export all PV units in NRW with MarktakteurId / operator fields.
Export all biogas/biomass units in NRW with the same.
Join on operator ID (or normalized company name + postal code if ID join is messy).

That yields operators who own at least one PV and at least one biogas unit — a strong fit for the plan’s hybrid renewable story. It misses cases where the farmer hosts one plant and leases land to a third-party SPV for the other (different Marktakteur but same gate for outreach). Those need manual mapping (satellite, local press, Biogas register lists, chamber of agriculture).

What the plan actually needs for Phase 0¶

BUSINESS-PLAN.md Phase 0 requires one site with:

Space, power take-off, loose €/kWh agreement
Acceptable latency/uplink (Starlink or fiber)

So priority 1 is any suitable solar or biogas site in NRW. Hybrid operators are priority 0 for the long-term narrative but not a Phase 0 blocker.

Suggested scoring (simple)¶

Criterion	Why it matters
Net installed capacity (PV kWp / biogas kWel)	Tiny rooftop PV may lack spare capacity or interest; large ground-mount or >~500 kWel biogas easier
Post-2024 EEG / curtailment exposure (solar)	Aligns with “excess power” story (003)
Post-EEG / Direktvermarktung (biogas)	Aligns with 009
Distance to fiber / Starlink sky view	Operations in §8
Operator type	Landwirtschaft vs. pure IPP — cultural fit for “farm gate” pitch

DSGVO / outreach hygiene¶

MaStR contains business contact categories; still treat data as professional contact data — document purpose (B2B energy partnership inquiry), minimize retention, avoid scraping personal mobile numbers into public sheets.
Prefer written first contact to generic company addresses / contact forms.

Manual channels (cannot be replaced by MaStR)¶

Landwirtschaftskammer NRW events, DLG regional contacts
Biogasverband / operator networks
Solar park developers with assets in NRW (IPP list from news + MaStR cross-check)

These are relationship accelerators; the register is coverage for “who exists where.”