Operation has reportedly commenced for the world’s largest floating mega solar power plant, located in Japan and developed by Kyocera.
Reported on the Nikkei Business Publications website Solar Power Plant Business, The Hyogo Kasai City Sakasamaike Floating Mega Solar Power Plant began the sale of electricity to Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) on June 11.
The project, which is built on the Sakasamaike Pond in Kasai City, in the Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, is apparently the largest mega solar power plant in the world, with an estimated annual output of 2,680 MWh.
It’s not a huge project — generating the equivalent of only 820 households of electricity needs — but it’s one step on a long road to freeing Japan from the spectre of nuclear power. In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster which occurred all the way back in March 2011, a flood of public and political support overwhelmingly called for a move away from nuclear energy. This is easier said than done in a country which generates somewhere between 10% and 30% from nuclear energy (depending on your statistics), and imports a bucketload more.
The power producer for the Sakasamaike Floating Mega Solar Power Plant is Kyocera TCL Solar, which is a special purpose company set up between Kyocera Corporation and Century Tokyo Leasing Corporation. Kyocera TCL Solar is also set to begin development of another floating mega solar power plant, this time in Kato City, in the Hyogo Prefecture, which will have a capacity of approximately 1.7 MW.
More important, Kyocera TCL Solar is also apparently working on a project to develop a 13.4 MW floating mega solar power plant, this time to be developed on Yamakura Dam in Ichihara City, in the Chiba Prefecture.
Solar Power Plant Business have a wonderful run through of the Sakasamaike Floating Mega Solar Power Plant, explaining the process by which floating solar works and the specific development of this project.
