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Tuesday, 26th January 2016
In General Japan News,
Biggest floating solar power plant in the world being built in Japan
Japan is set to be home to the largest floating solar power plant in the world when construction is complete of an installation on the Yamakura Dam reservoir in Chiba Prefecture.
The project is a joint venture between Kyocera TCL Solar and Century Tokyo Leasing Corp for the prefecture’s Public Enterprise Agency.
While this newest installation will be the largest to be achieved, the companies involved have already created three similar solar power displays near the city of Kobe on Honshu Island.
Building this type of solar array on bodies of water is seen as a way to side step the issue of taking up precious land space in a country that is short on square metres.
Toshihide Koyano, executive officer and general manager of Kyocera’s solar energy group told IEEE Spectrum: “Due to the rapid implementation of solar power in Japan, securing tracts of land suitable for utility-scale solar power plants is becoming difficult.
“On the other hand, because there are many reservoirs for agricultural use and flood-control, we believe there’s great potential for floating solar-power generation business.”
Once completed, the newest floating power station will be capable of generating 16,170 megawatt-hours a year.
Located just 75 kilometres from Tokyo, it will consist of 51,000 Kyocera solar modules stretched across 180,000 square metres.
Kyocera says that the installation will provide enough energy to power around 4,970 typical households and save 8,170 tons of carbon dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere each year.
Once generated, the current will be collected by three substations and fed into the 154-kilovolt grid lines operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.
The platform, which is being built out of corrosion-resistant materials, will be anchored to the bottom of the reservoir as opposed to the dam’s walls.
It will not affect the water quality, but will reduce water evaporation and slow the growth of algae in Yamakura Dam.
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