At the island of Batam in Indonesia, the world's largest solar cell plant will now be built on water. The panels will be installed on a 1600 hectare area in the middle of the Duriangkang reservoir and will have an installed power of 2.2 GW. It will be combined with an energy storage of 4000 MWH, which will also be the world's largest. It writes MSN and refers to the site electrek.co.
The project will begin construction in 2022, is expected to take two years and is the latest in a series of floating facilities being built in Asia. In the past, we have written about a facility in Singapore (read more about this).
Growing in popularity
Floating solar cells have also reached Europe and are something that is growing in popularity. There is already a 2000 square metre facility in the Swiss Alps and in Portugal a plant with an output of 4 MW is planned.
It is not entirely inconceivable that it would also enter the Swedish market, according to Anna Werner, CEO of the swedish solar energy organisation Svensk Solenergi. In an interview with Ny Teknik, she says that floating solar cells are a desirable method for sustainable electricity production in the future.
"There is an increasing market for floating solar cells in the world. It's a technology development. It is a bit like building-integrated solar cells, which are also at the stage where the traditional silicon solar cells were 15 years ago – there are many of the thin film solar cells today and also the liquid ones. It's up and coming technology, which means they need the support that silicon solar cells got 15 years ago, to get over the little hump at the beginning that new technology needs, partly because people want to invest in it," she says.
"Can cover our total energy needs"
Although there is a lot of interest, there are currently no plans to build local facilities. However, with great access to lakes and power plant dams, this could become a reality in the future, provided that the technology is allowed to develop somewhat more.
"Hypothetically, you could build a plant with floating solar cells in the middle of Vättern that would cover our total electricity needs in Sweden today – and you still wouldn't see it from the beaches. Unfortunately, however, not all electricity would come when we need it, and the batteries are not efficient enough yet.
