A gigantic 40-MW floating solar farm has started generating power in Huainan, a coal-rich city in eastern China's Anhui province, which could power about 15,000 households a year.
More than 120,000 photovoltaic panels were installed on floats, covering around 86 hectares on the water surface of a coal mining subsidence area, according to the project runner, a branch of the Sungrow Power Supply Co Ltd.
Xiao Fuqin, deputy general manager of the branch, said that the floats are 200 or 300 meters away from the bank on the 400-hectare-large subsidence area, in a bid to prevent the farm from the decreasing water.
"The floats seem to stay on the surface, but actually more than 1,000 reinforced concrete piles are installed on their bottom to keep them in order," Xiao said.
The farm can serve as long as 25 years. That needs designers take lots of factors into account, such as heat, salt and humidity.
Compared with a conventional solar farm, floating solar farm doesn't need valuable land resources, which benefits a lot for the local development.
"Drones take care of the solar farm," said Xiao, "they will be the first arrivers at the scene to supervise if equipment failures."
(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Harry Huo)
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