200 MW solar-aquaculture project (Cixi - China)
The city of Cixi, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, is home to a 200 MW solar-aquaculture project. Spreading across 300 hectares, this is the largest solar power plant installed on top of a fish farm in the country. Hangzhou Fengling developed the project (investing around $260 million – an amount they expect to get back in seven to eight years, as the system will pay for itself) and connected it to the state grid in 2017, while a unit of the State Grid Corp of China power utility built two new 110 kV booster stations.
The photovoltaic (PV) panels were installed above the surface of the Changhe and Zhouxiang reservoirs and are expected to generate around 220 GWh of electricity per year, enough to supply 100,000 households. The produced amount of clean energy avoids the need to burn 7.4 tonnes of coal, thus dramatically reducing carbon emissions.
Fishery also benefits from the new floating solar park, as the PV modules provide shelter for adequate procreation conditions, while at the same time allowing enough sunshine to penetrate the water for proper fish growth.
Solar-aquaculture projects are becoming increasingly common in China, not only due to the benefits of the double economic model of energy production and fish farming, but also because they have the advantage of saving considerable land space and costs associated to terrain acquisition.
Sources:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/01/23/hangzhou-fengling-finishes-200-mw-solar-aquaculture-project/
https://www.futureentech.com/2017/01/china-builds-200-mw-solar-power-plant.html
Improved Energy management.
Description of the specific objectives:
- Reduce CO2 emissions by using solar power to generate electricity instead of burning coal;
- Provide shelter for the fish to procreate;
- Save land space.
Hangzhou Fengling; State Grid Corp of China (SGCC).