Japanese technology giant, Kyocera is to partner with Century Tokyo Leasing and a French solar technology specialist to develop and build two new very large floating solar photovoltaic (solar PV) farms in Japan. These will eventually become parts of a 60MW floating renewable energy network. James Hunt reports:

Solar panel firm, Kyocera Corp, Century Tokyo Leasing Corp and French company Ciel Terre are to team up in constructing two huge floating solar power plants, which should be built, commissioned and running by April next year.

These two plants – one with a 1.7MW capacity and the other providing 1.2MW of electrical power - are said to be merely the first two of a planned network of around 30 floating 2MW power plants, capable of generating a combined 60MW of power.

Over 11,000 panels are to be installed as part of this project, which will have an annual output of around 3.3 million kWh.

Construction is scheduled to start this month on Nishihira pond in Japan's Hyogo Prefecture, west of Osaka. The second installation is to be built on Dongping pond, and both should be completed ready for power generation by April next year.

The reasons for building these floating solar PV plants are essentially two-fold. Firstly, Japan (like the UK but even more so) is a small and overcrowded country, and the floating arrangements save land space. Secondly, it is claimed that since the solar PV panels are over water and close to it, they generate solar power more efficiently because they run cooler. Indeed, it is said that floating solar PV systems generate about 10% more electricity than rooftop or ground-mount systems of the same size.

Ciel el Terre (France), which has been developing large-scale PV systems mainly in France since 2006, has been involved in this project – as well in France. The company’s floating Solar PV systems are marketed under the name ‘Hydrelio System’, in which solar PV modules are mounted on high-density polyethylene floats. No metallic parts are used and the system is said to be as easy to assemble as ‘Lego’.

In fact, Ciel el Terre has already been involved in an already operational 1.18MW solar PV system floating on a water reservoir at Okegawa in Saitama. It reportedly took just three weeks to assemble the floating system, and three months to build the complete Okegawa project, which comprises 4,500 solar PV modules. For those concerned about the ability to withstand storms, the Okegawa project has already successfully withstood three typhoons.

Interest elsewhere

As well as the three plants mentioned, and the others that will make up the planned 60MW network, other countries are also interested in floating solar PV plants, including India, and in California, USA – the latter as part of a winery that wanted to become a net-zero electricity user, but didn’t want to rip up valuable vines to create space for conventional solar PV.

Could we not do the same in the UK? We have plenty of offshore wind farms, so why not floating solar PV too?