China has been increasing its renewable energy capacity, above all, investing in the most impressive megastructures. In that sense and then deploy solar energy throughout the earth’s surface, now it is the turn of its seas.
Marine solar energy. State-owned company CHN Energy Investment Group (CHN Energy) has installed the first large-scale 1 gigawatt (GW) offshore solar project in the open sea.
Together with the subsidiary Guohua Energy Investment, they have completed the installation of the solar park, which has been successfully connected to the grid and has begun to generate electricity in the Kenli district, Shandong province (eastern China).
2,934 solar platforms. The photovoltaic system has used steel frame platforms and is the first of its kind with a fixed foundation construction. The project has occupied an area of around 1,223 hectares, located eight kilometers from the coast of Dongying en Shandong.
Each platform measures 60 meters long and 35 meters wide. Additionally, this PV project includes a 66 kV marine cable paired with a terrestrial cable, marking the first time it has been used in the Chinese market.
Forecasts. Although it has already begun to provide energy, the forecasts are set for the solar park to generate 1,780 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. That amount of energy would be equivalent to saving 503,800 metric tons of standard coal.
It doesn’t just generate electricity. The marine solar park includes a model for the integration of fishing with solar energy. This type of development that combines marine renewable energy with aquaculture has already been carried out in China in another project with offshore wind energy.
The expansion of China. A year ago a subsidiary of CHN Energy announced the plan to build a 1 GW floating solar photovoltaic plant in Zimbabwe. The project that is still in the development and planning process seeks to deploy around 1.8 million photovoltaic solar modules on the top of the Kariba Dam, the largest artificial lake in the world.
More marine solar parks. CHN Energy’s project will be the first large-scale offshore solar park in the water. However, another state-owned company, Huaneng Group, installed the first wave-resistant marine photovoltaic platform.
Reducing pollution. One of CHN Energy’s forecasts is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.34 million tons per year. Recently, a global graph has detailed that 31% of global emissions come from China. Dependency on coal is still shortening its race towards the energy transition.
Imagen | CHN Energy
WorldOfSoftware | China is regularly hit by typhoons. Now it has a mega wind turbine to take advantage of them
