The largest solar farm on the ocean is now running off the coast of China as the country continues to invest in ways to support its sustainable energy needs.
In the "How to Protect the Ocean" podcast, host Andrew Lewin discusses China's deployment of the world's largest open sea offshore solar panel farm. The project, developed by CHN Energy, spans 1,223 hectares (3,023 acres) and is located 8 kilometers off the coast of China. It aims to generate one gigawatt of renewable energy and is notable for its innovative use of offshore solar technology.
Pros of the Offshore Solar Project
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Efficient Land Use: Utilizing water bodies for solar energy reduces the need for land clearing and habitat destruction typically associated with land-based solar farms.
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Reduced Evaporation: The solar panels cover the water surface, which can help conserve water by reducing evaporation rates in reservoirs and agricultural areas.
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Improved Solar Efficiency: The cooling effect of water can enhance the efficiency of solar panels compared to those installed on land.
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Dual Use Potential: Floating solar farms can coexist with hydroelectric facilities, optimizing energy production and utilizing existing infrastructure.
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Algal Bloom Reduction: The solar panels can help suppress harmful algal blooms in aquatic systems by limiting sunlight penetration.
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Clean Energy Generation: The project contributes to renewable energy production, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.
Cons of the Offshore Solar Project
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Impact on Aquatic Systems: The shade from solar panels may alter water temperature and light penetration, potentially disrupting habitats for aquatic plants and animals.
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Habitat Disruption: The solar farm installation could affect fish spawning areas and migratory patterns, similar to concerns raised about wind farms.
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Material Degradation: Using plastics and metals in solar structures could lead to microplastic contamination and chemical pollution over time.
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Recreational Disruption: Floating solar farms may hinder recreational activities, fishing, and navigation in the area.
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Installation Risks: The anchoring and cabling required for the solar systems could disturb sediments and harm local aquatic habitats.
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Vulnerability to Weather Events: The structures may be susceptible to damage from storms, hurricanes, and flooding, potentially releasing debris or pollutants into the water.
The episode emphasizes the need for careful planning and mitigation strategies to address the potential environmental concerns associated with floating solar farms. While the project presents a promising opportunity for renewable energy generation, it also raises important questions about the ecological impacts on marine environments. The host encourages listeners to engage in the conversation about the balance between renewable energy development and ocean conservation.
Link to article: https://electrek.co/2024/11/14/china-worlds-largest-open-sea-offshore-solar-farm/
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China has deployed the world's largest open-seat offshore solar panel farm. Imagine that. China has done this. So the first question is, is like, we really know how much China was investing in renewable energy. This kind of shows us what they've been up to. But also, how does that affect the ocean? Thinking about a panel that covers a large swath of the ocean, what does that do for the animals and the habitats that are below those solar panels? There are some benefits to having solar panels in the ocean, and there are obviously some disadvantages to having it there. And we're going to talk about both on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And today's episode, we're going to be talking about China and how they've essentially deployed the largest offshore open solar, open sea, I guess, solar farm, solar panel farm. It is fantastic. We're going to talk all about it. But before we do, I just wanted to let you know if this is the first time you hear the second time you hear you just discovered this through threads or blue sky, you're one of my new followers. I want to thank you for joining us. This is your ocean resource to find out all about the latest news, the science, the conservation, and what's happening in the ocean, how you can speak up, and how you can live for a better ocean by taking action. Of course, I mentioned the beginning of the episode. If you want to know more about the podcast or videos or anything that's out there, you can go to speakupforblue.com to find out more. And if you want information directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. Eastern, you can sign up at speakupforblue.com/newsletter. There's ocean news, podcast episode, videos. We have job ads as well if in case you want that. There's lots of stuff, lots of goodies in there bringing into call to action soon. So sign up speakupforblue.com/newsletter. Let's talk about this massive project off the coast of China. It's actually a one gigawatt offshore solar farm, the world's first and largest of its kind that goes right to the grid. It's a China's CHN energy that has connected the solar units. The project sits eight kilometers, it's five miles from my American friends, off the coast and spans an impressive 1,223 hectares or 3,023 acres. And it uses about 2,900 solar platforms that rest on large scale offshore steel truss foundations. Each platform measuring 60 meters or 197 feet by 35 meters or 115 feet. So it's the first time in China that a 66 kilovolt offshore cable paired with an onshore cable has been used for high capacity long distance electricity transmission in the solar sector. Now I am going to link this article that's on electric with a K to the show notes if you want to know more about it. It's very technical from a renewable energy standpoint. But what I want to focus on is how is this beneficial? Why in the ocean and what's it going to do to the environment? Like the stuff that's underneath. And so I think that's really kind of a cool question to ask. So I did a little bit of research. There's a couple of positive environmental impacts on like about the system and everything. So the systems utilize, so here's some energy efficient land use. So essentially these systems utilize water bodies like reservoirs, lakes and oceans reducing the need for land clearing and habitat destruction often associated with land based solar farms. So that's a positive. It reduced evaporation. So by covering the water surface these systems reduce evaporation rates which can help conserve water in reservoirs and agricultural areas. Improved solar efficiency, the cooling effect of water reduces the temperature of solar panels improving their efficiency compared to land based systems. So that's another positive potential for dual use. So the floating solar farms can coexist with hydroelectric facilities optimizing energy production and utilizing an existing infrastructure. Reducing algal blooms. So by limiting the sunlight penetrating into the water of the solar panels covering it these systems can help suppress algal blooms which are harmful to aquatic systems which is true. Clean energy generation is like traditional solar farms. These systems provide renewable energy reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. So the big impacts here is not using land, not clearing really critical habitats and avoiding habitat destruction on land so that you can do it in the ocean. Now with that said is how much of the habitats are you clearing in the ocean. It doesn't really mention it in the article that that I was reading. So that's one of the things that we're going to talk about. Now let's get into but like sorry just to continue on with a positive reduction in algal blooms. That's great improved solar efficiency. That's obviously great for the functioning reduced evaporation or so reduced water evaporation which I guess is great but in the overall ocean or in a lake, a large lake. I'm not sure if this is going to be that much of a contribution but anything that helps will help greatly. And then of course it can coexist with other hydroelectric facilities which is great and it's clean energy. It's more renewable energy that we can put in more places which is wonderful. Now let's talk about some of the negative environmental impacts. That's the impact on aquatic systems. So the shade effect of solar panels can alter water temperature and light penetration, potentially disrupting the habitat of aquatic plants and animals. Now if you think about where these you know these are going to be located, you wouldn't expect them to be located on sea grass habitats near mangrove habitats or on coral reefs or salt marshes or any other really important like sponge reefs, any other important areas of like habitat that would be on. Hopefully it would be in areas where it's just sand but it has to be enough to be offshore that people wouldn't see it because nobody likes seeing any kind of structure out on the ocean when they're looking out off the coast line or off a beach. I mean we've seen a lot of examples off the coast of US, you know near Martha's Vineyard Cape Cod. People don't want to look out these very expensive homes that they bought and see wind farms or in California on the opposite coast, they don't want to see wind farms off their coast where they've bought homes or they've paid a high a lot like a high residency value, like high home prices so that they can look at wind farms, they don't want to see that they want to see the beauty of the ocean, the beauty of the coastline. So having these structures very close would really suck from a people perspective and join the coastline perspective. Floating structures may affect fish spawning areas or migratory patterns, the actual physical structure and we've seen this with you know impacts with wind farms, we've seen that that's been a huge worry and concern is how is it going to impact migration routes but there are regulations in place. I know in the US, I know in Canada where you know that is all avoided, the impact assessments are done and hopefully avoided from that area. I'm actually working with some people to have somebody that knows a lot about ocean wind farms as well as impacts on the environment and demystifying a lot of the information that's out there or that rumors that might be out there so hopefully we'll get that on that person on soon but we'll see what happens with that. But this is you know this is a structure that is ideally or in concept and just when you look at it in the picture at electric.com you actually see that it covers more surface area than a wind farm would that's what it looks like anyway. So something that you really have to be careful of in terms of covering the water okay marine pollution so and the materials used for these systems like plastics and metals could degrade over time leading to micro microplastic or chemical contamination of the water. You would hope you would hope that these solar panels are built better than that but it's the these are the first iterations of this on the ocean this can backfire and it can cause a lot of problems so I'm making sure that the the items the solar panels the structures are built properly and effectively but we don't know what's going to happen in the ocean as it gets degraded whereas the ocean heats up or there's you know obviously there's there's waves that happen in the ocean and and and lakes that can be very severe and it can damage the structure and that could you know break up and that could leak out some nasty chemicals or something that's made up of these so you have to be careful of that. Destructing then the water use disruption to water use so floating solar farms might hinder recreational activities fishing or navigation of the water of water body you know there are there's a lot of boat traffic out there and whether it's recreational or commercial these items need to be mapped these hazards need to be put in place and making sure that people can see them in time so they don't damage their boats or you know me a run risk of running a ground or running over these panels and sinking themselves so that's obviously something that's a problem. The installation and maintenance risks so the anchoring and cabling of the systems could disturb sediment, harm aquatic habitats, or pose risks to local wildlife so you think about the actual installation of the physical structure and the pipe lines that are required the cables that are required to be laid down to go to the coastline that will eventually disrupt a certain part of the areas we don't know how it's going to cut off certain areas we don't know what it's going to do to the sediment we don't know what it's going to do to any kind of fish habitat that's in the way or any kind of special nursery or spawning habitat that might get affected indirectly right. Vulnerability to weather events in areas prone to storms hurricanes and flooding these systems could be damaged potentially you know releasing debris or pollutants into the water you know hurricanes cyclones typhoons these are all major events that would that would harm these areas that could destroy these areas depending on how hard it is there's a lot of engineering that could go into place that would be able to make these panels and make these structures a bit stronger to say hey this can handle a specific hurricane cyclone typhoon level i don't know the specifics i'm not an engineer but obviously that needs to be taken into consideration so any kind of consistent speaking of considerations for minimizing impacts site selection so careful placement of these systems on artificial reservoirs or integrated water bodies could reduce ecological impacts eco-friendly materials so durable non-toxic materials could minimize pollution effects or risks monitoring programs ongoing environmental monitoring which i think is happening with ocean farm wind farms and can help identify and mitigate any negative effects of on aquatic ecosystems one thing to say about that i know a lot of companies i know oil and gas companies have worked in the private consulting industry before nobody likes to pay for monitoring so it really comes down to regulations by governments to enforce that that monitoring to be not only done and conducted but also reported on so that the government can know what's happening out there uh an integration with other systems so combining systems with aquaculture or hydroelectric projects could optimize land and use water so overall you know floating solar farms uh present a promising opportunity for renewal uh renewable energy generation with careful planning and mitigation strategies to address potential environmental concerns this could actually work really well but uh there's always like as a scientist who's who's been involved in and stuff like this in private consulting and seeing regulation stuff there's still a lot that needs to be put into place and it's iterative right the first iteration is never the best and it will improve over time but at what risk what risk are we willing to take to the ocean two lakes two air like like um artificial reservoirs and so forth that could impede the environment is this worth the risk is this what we have come to do do we understand like to have a full capacity to understand and capabilities of these farms compared to the hindrance that it will cause to the ocean because it will cause impacts there's no doubt you're putting a structure right a mechanical structure in the water in the ocean and these are going to be the large structures this will impact the ocean at what point are we going to say yes it's enough or we need to do it's a lot like deep sea mining except deep sea mining we don't know the effects here we can monitor the effects a lot easier and understand what it's going to do and have maybe some pilot projects but it's it's a very interesting concept and it's you know saving habitats on land but at what risk on the ocean um and that's what i'd love to hear from you do you think it's worth the risk to develop these solar panels farms floating solar panel farms on in the ocean and i don't even know if they're actual floating i think they're actually you know put down in shallow areas but um i would like to know what you think you can put a comment on youtube put a comment on spotify video and youtube videos or you can hit me up on instagram at how to protect the ocean i'd love to know what you think of this of these floating solar farms it's always interesting to hear your feedback because i start this conversation i want you to continue it so that you can have a great conversation about these these systems this new innovation uh in this new way of of trying to get renewable energy started and started quickly love to hear your thoughts i want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of how to protect the ocean podcast have a great day we'll talk to you next time and happy conservation
