Solar freaking....islands?

[george graves]

Japan is planning to build huge floating solar power plants ...




http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20140109-26104.html

Japan may be short on free land space, but that’s not stopping them from investing in renewable energy. Solar panel company Kyocera Corp, Century Tokyo Leasing Corp and Ciel Terre have announced (release in Japanese) that they're teaming up to create two huge floating solar power plants which will be up and running by April next year.

These are just the first two of a planned network of around 30 floating 2 megawatt (MW) power plants, capable of generating a combined 60 MW of power, a spokesperson from Kyocera told Chisaki Watanabe from Bloomberg.

The first of these floating solar farms to be build will have 1.7 MW of power capacity, making it the world's largest floating solar power plant. Construction will start this month, according to the announcement, on the surface of Nishihira pond in Japan's Hyogo Prefecture, west of Osaka. The second will have a capacity of 1.2 MW and will be built on Dongping pond, Jason Hahn reports for Digital Trends, and the plants are aimed to be finished by April 2015.

According to Digital Trends, just these first two floating solar power plants would be enough to power anywhere between 483 and 967 American households.

The floating power plants aren’t just good for saving space - because the panels are over water they have a cooler temperature,which makes them more efficient. India has also recently invested in floating solar panels.

Kyocera and Century Tokyo partnered in August 2012 to develop around 93 MW of solar power plants, Bloomberg reports. So far, 22 MW of these projects have begun operating.

[george graves]

Is it just me, or is that image totally Photoshopped?

[coppice]

Is it just me, or is that image totally Photoshopped?

They haven't built the first one yet. Were you expecting a genuine picture that has travelled back in time from beyond its completion? 

[PA0PBZ]

Is it just me, or is that image totally Photoshopped?

They haven't built the first one yet. Were you expecting a genuine picture that has travelled back in time from beyond its completion? 

Meh, the caption says "One of Kyocera’s existing solar power plants, which has 70 MW of power capacity and sticks out into Kagoshima Bay in southern Japan."

Edit: Just to make another point: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.466921,130.5276208,1840m/data=!3m1!1e3

[Rufus]

Is it just me, or is that image totally Photoshopped?

They haven't built the first one yet. Were you expecting a genuine picture that has travelled back in time from beyond its completion? 

Meh, the caption says "One of Kyocera’s existing solar power plants, which has 70 MW of power capacity and sticks out into Kagoshima Bay in southern Japan."

Being located a few miles from an active volcano "dropping large amounts of volcanic ash on the surroundings" doesn't seem like a very good idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakurajima

[tom66]

What is the worst that could happen? It's better than a nuclear power plant near an active volcano.
You might want to periodically clean the panels, of course, but that's general maintenance for any solar system.

[RobertoLG]

Looks interesting, good alternative to nuclear power, the corrosion would be a problem, electronics don't react whery well to salt water, saw a notebook that wasn't evem worth fixing, and that was only because of salty air...heh

[coppice]

Is it just me, or is that image totally Photoshopped?

They haven't built the first one yet. Were you expecting a genuine picture that has travelled back in time from beyond its completion? 

Meh, the caption says "One of Kyocera’s existing solar power plants, which has 70 MW of power capacity and sticks out into Kagoshima Bay in southern Japan."

Good point. I found that picture elsewhere. Its an artists impression from 2012 when the project started. Its supposed to be complete now. However, if Kyocera have build a 70MW plant sticking out into a bay, whats the big deal about making 1.7MW and 1.3MW floating plants, which they describe as massive? Is buoyancy that exciting?

[SeanB]

Well, you could do double duty as a floating oyster farm, and as a fish farm as well. With a little extra space you can use the solar panels as well as a desalination unit to both keep them cool and make fresh water that you can use to wash them at night to keep the salt down.

As this area is rather known for Typhoons it would be some serious design problem to make them able to survive the high winds and heavy sea of the windy season.

[gildasd]

Looks interesting, good alternative to nuclear power, the corrosion would be a problem, electronics don't react whery well to salt water, saw a notebook that wasn't evem worth fixing, and that was only because of salty air...heh

Use the same tech as on cargoes. Not cheap stuff for a Mac Mansion. Bonus: can be washed with pressure while active.

[RobertoLG]

Looks interesting, good alternative to nuclear power, the corrosion would be a problem, electronics don't react whery well to salt water, saw a notebook that wasn't evem worth fixing, and that was only because of salty air...heh

Use the same tech as on cargoes. Not cheap stuff for a Mac Mansion. Bonus: can be washed with pressure while active.

ya, i'm sure they would use the best materials to make it work with a minimum/acceptable rate of failure, they could even colect the heat to use it in some way, stirling engines maybe

something like this probably
http://www.synison.gr/images/THE-DOT-project_SolarStirlingEngine.gif