Floating solar farms are growing in popularity across the globe.
According to NASA, Floating solar farms may be the next environmental game-changer. Captured an image of one of the world’s most giant floating solar farms from space; they are famous throughout Asia.
The city of Dezhou’s reduced reliance on fossil fuels led to the construction of the 320-megawatt Dezhou Dingzhuang Floating Solar Farm in the province of Shandong in China. It is thought that the city of Solar Valley, California, which has around five million residents, obtains 98% of its electricity from solar energy.
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What is Floating Solar, Exactly?
According to NASA, land may be scarce and costly, and using this land to create solar farms may “cause conflict with farmers, environmentalists, and other groups.” This information is based on research conducted by NASA.
Floating solar farms are a potential option that might be pursued. Solar panels may be placed on the water’s surface of lakes, reservoirs, industrial ponds, and other sites close to the shore. We call them floating photovoltaic systems, but we’ll call them photovoltaics for short.
NASA believes floating solar is one of the most important technologies that may be used to decarbonize countries by the year 2050. According to research recently published in the journal Nature, installing solar panels on the surface of only ten per cent of the world’s hydroelectric reservoirs could generate as much energy as all of the world’s fossil fuel power plants combined – 4,000 gigatonnes.
South Korea, for instance, is constructing the world’s giant floating solar power plant. Power Technology, a news website covering the energy business, estimates that the project on the Saemangeum tidal flats on South Korea’s west coast would generate 2.1 gigatonnes of electricity, sufficient to provide one million homes with power.
Portugal is the site of Europe’s biggest floating solar farm, which may be found there. The Alqueva reservoir, on which it rests, is the biggest artificial lake in Europe. The power it generates fulfils almost one-third of the demand for energy in the surrounding areas. There are 12,000 solar panels spread throughout the floating solar farm, which is the equivalent area to four football fields.
India and Singapore are Significant Investors in Floating Solar Panels.
A floating solar energy complex with a capacity of 600 megawatts is now being constructed in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India, next to the Omkareshwar Dam on the Narmada River. Madhya Pradesh’s Indira Sagar dam will soon be home to another floating solar power facility with a capacity of 1 gigatonne. The state in the middle of India currently produces 5,500 megawatts of power from renewable sources. It has ambitions to add another 20,000 megawatts by 2030, as reported by the Asian solar energy news site SolarQuarter.
The Tengah Reservoir in Singapore is the size of 45 football fields and has 122,000 solar panels that are floating on the water. It provides electricity to five water treatment facilities in Singapore. It helps the island get closer to its goal of quadrupling the amount of solar energy it produces by 2025.
United States and German Solar Floating Installations
In California, work is now being done on what will be the giant floating solar plant ever built in the United States. The Healdsburg Floating Solar Farm is said to have 11,600 solar panels and can generate 4.8 megawatts of energy, as stated by the power provider Sonoma Clean Power. This is sufficient to meet 8% of Healdsburg’s electrical power demand.
The construction of Germany’s most giant floating solar plant, which will save up to 1,100 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, is now underway in the town of Haltern am Sea, located on an unused lake in a quarry. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany and other European countries have focused more on developing renewable energy sources to reduce their reliance on oil and gas imports from Russia.
Solar Panels in Unusual Positions
Solar panels aren’t just randomly appearing on the water’s surface. They may also be found in the most unexpected places, such as roads, golf courses, and parking lots.
In the Netherlands, for instance, a 70-meter section of a bicycle path called a “solar road” in Amsterdam produced 3,000 kilowatts of electricity in its first six months of operation. This amount of power is sufficient to meet the annual energy requirements of a single person.
PV Magazine has reported that a golf course in Japan that has been wholly abandoned has been transformed into a solar farm. Retailers like IKEA and Target in the United States are leading the way in developing solar-powered carports, which are becoming more commonplace.
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