The BBC has a pair of reports on floating solar power plants being built on top of dams in the UK - a practical way of building large scale renewable energy plants close to urban areas - Floating solar farm installation starts in Greater Manchester and Europe's largest floating solar farm to open.
This idea also helps reduce evaporation from the dam - and where the dam is also used for hydro-electric power, has a ready made, intermittently used grid connection available too.
An example of this is being put into practice in Brazil - Cleantechnica has a report on one 10MW project (out of a total of
350MW of floating solar plants planned for the country) -
Brazil Pairs Hydro & Floating Solar.
Brazil isn't the only country in the Americas building floating solar plants - the concept has spread to the united States as well -
Partners Start Building 3.2 MW Floating Solar Project In N.J..
The country which has taken the greatest interest in floating solar plants is Japan (unsurprising given the huge build out of solar in the country since the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the lack of empty land for large scale solar power plants). The world's largest example is under construction by Kyocera in Chiba prefecture -
Japan begins work on 'world's largest' floating solar farm.
Posts
