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China Builds World’s Largest Floating Solar Plant
from Hang The Bankers:
In the beginning of June 2017, workers brought a solar energy plant online capable of producing 40 megawatts of power.
That’s cool all by itself, but this solar “farm” floats on a manmade lake in China’s Anhui province, and it is the largest floating solar project in the world.
The massive power plant was built by Sungrow Power Supply, and can produce enough energy to power 15,000 homes. The exact size of the operation has not been revealed, but it produces twice as much energy as the previous holder of the largest-floating-solar-plant title, which was launched by Xinyi Solar in 2016.
Building solar plants on bodies of water helps prevent agricultural land and terrestrial ecosystems from being developed for energy use – especially manmade lakes that are not ecologically sensitive. The water cools the electronics in the solar panels, which helps them work more efficiently.
Britain did the same thing for similar reasons in 2016 when it built a 23,000-panel floating solar farm on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir near Heathrow Airport. The plant helps power the Thames Water treatment plant. The solar farm in Anhui province consists of 160,000 solar panels.
China is beginning to lead the world in clean energy investment, and the nation is projected to get 20% of its power consumption from low-emission energy by 2030.
