Indonesia Floats Southeast Asia's Biggest Solar Plant For 50,000 Homes (interestingengineering.com) 22
According to Nikkei Asia (paywalled), Indonesia has officially launched Southeast Asia's largest floating solar plant. It covers an area of over 250 hectares (2.5 km^2) and should be able to produce enough renewable energy to power 50,000 homes. Interesting Engineering reports: "Today is a historical day because our big dream of building a large-scale renewable energy plant is finally achieved. We managed to build the largest floating solar plant in Southeast Asia, and the third biggest in the world," Widodo is reported to have said at the opening ceremony. "The Cirata floating solar panel is the largest floating solar panel in Southeast Asia, and also the third largest in the world," he added.
China's PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited constructed the power plant with Indonesia's state electricity corporation PLN and the United Arab Emirates energy company Masdar. The project had an investment of $145 million. More than 340,000 solar panels cover the reservoir surface, generating 192 MW of electricity annually, complementing existing hydropower at the site. The project had experienced significant delays before construction finally commenced in December 2020. [...]
PLN and Masdar are discussing plans to expand the facility and increase its power generation capacity to 500 MW. The plant occupies only 4% of the dam's reservoir surface, and according to the Indonesian government, solar panels can occupy up to 20% of the surface of a lake or dam, making it an efficient use of space.
China's PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited constructed the power plant with Indonesia's state electricity corporation PLN and the United Arab Emirates energy company Masdar. The project had an investment of $145 million. More than 340,000 solar panels cover the reservoir surface, generating 192 MW of electricity annually, complementing existing hydropower at the site. The project had experienced significant delays before construction finally commenced in December 2020. [...]
PLN and Masdar are discussing plans to expand the facility and increase its power generation capacity to 500 MW. The plant occupies only 4% of the dam's reservoir surface, and according to the Indonesian government, solar panels can occupy up to 20% of the surface of a lake or dam, making it an efficient use of space.
The best thing about this story (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: The best thing about this story (Score:2)
Also, having panels covering that much water will either decrease evaporation, saving water, or improve panel cooling, which will increase panel life span... depending on how they designed it.
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I met someone once who managed a solar plant, about 10 years ago. At that time he said that they efficiency was improving so fast that they were replacing panels after about 5 years. But, as you said, the panels are recyclable.
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I have no doubt solar photovoltaic technology is viable. I question the economics of building a large installation on a body of water. I'd also quuestion the environmental impact of doing so on an *inland* body of water, although in this case it's an artificial reservoir behind a hydroelectric dam which may affect the economics of the plant as well.
If this is not a boondoggle, it's like a special case.
Re: The best thing about this story (Score:4, Informative)
Also, if you watch the video, there's clearly guys just walking around on the walkways between every single row, so accessibility doesn't appear to be an issue.
Fresh water doesn't actually conduct electricity very well at all....here's a chart: https://www.thoughtco.com/tabl... [thoughtco.com]
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Additionally, covering the water results in less evaporation. Floating solar is likely to become quite common on reservoirs, instead of just black plastic balls or nothing.
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Having lived in Jakarta as a child I can tell you that Java has two seasons: the rainy season and the monsoon. It doesn't make much difference whether you put something in a field or in the middle of a lake. Either way it's going to get very, very wet and corrosion is going to be a problem. Any large, open field is going to get flooded a lot. At least in a dammed lake you can control the level of the water. That makes it a very stable place to float a platform.
The Cirata Reservoir is located between Jak
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No one ever puts their Google U diploma to work when a new CPU is announced.
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The best thing about this story is a new take on SI units: 192 MW of electricity annually . Seriously - what does it mean?
So roughly 526KW per day of generation? About 10KW per day per home on average?
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> So roughly 526KW per day of generation? About 10KW per day per home on average?
Not really. MW and KW are units of power, which is not energy. Now, if we're talking MWH we would know something.
If the plant generates 192 MW of electricity annually it can generate 192 MW every day the sun shines.
Call this pedantic is you wish but contributes to the "dumbing of America" (insert your country here).
No no no, let me... (Score:2)
Re: O MW (Score:2)
192 MW of electricity annually? (Score:2)
A watt is 1 joule/second of energy delivery so a megawatt is a rate of energy delivery, i.e. power, not something you can total in a year. Perhaps they meant MWh? TFA has the same error.
Re: 192 MW of electricity annually? (Score:2)
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That's probably what the article meant but maybe it was written by AI. That'll be our excuse for a poor article write up. Still, it then brings us back to what NoWayNoShapeNoForm mentions that on ideal days, it's 10k per house a day. These homes must not be using AC or electric heating. That's the only way they'll effectively stay under that 10k per day as that's 300kwh a month.
Still, pretty good achievement. I wonder how badly the rainy season and worse monsoon season will be on overall productivity of the
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They have a GW of pumped hydro in the works for the battery.
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One of the linked sources [nikkei.com] states: "It is expected to generate 245 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year".
Where the subsequent article got its figures from I'm not sure.
Anyway, I think that works out at providing each of those 50,000 houses with ~13kWh / day.
PV is likely below coal fuel cost range for them (Score:2)
It pays for itself purely for the coal it saves. Indonesia is in an ideal situation for renewable energy, they have more (pumped) hydro potential by an order of magnitude than needed to go completely PV.