China completes new 70MW floating solar PV project on old coal area

French-based Ciel & Terre International has announced that its 70 MW floating solar power plant located on top of an old coal mining area in the province of Anhui, China, is now officially complete after several months of tests and monitoring.

Ciel & Terre has been developing floating solar PV projects since 2011 and has developed over 120 floating solar PV farms around the world – including in Cambodia, Taiwan, and South Africa.

At the end of 2018 construction was completed on a 70MW (peak) floating solar plant in the Chinese province of Anhui, in the country’s east, the largest floating solar plant in the world.

The project was constructed by China Energy Conservation Solar Technology and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) was completed by China Energy Engineering Group Shanxi Electric Power Design Institute.

Built atop a former coal-mining area in the Yongqiao district, Suzhou city, the new project will primarily be used to improve the energy structure in the province and the quality of the environment on-site.

The idea of floating solar projects continues to gain traction as the economics of solar power generation becomes more attractive and available land becomes harder to come by. Utilising bodies of water for solar generation solves several issues while still generating clean electricity.

Further, company’s like Ciel & Terre also focus their efforts on installing floating solar systems on brown fields or remediation ponds in an effort to transform polluted land and water into clean energy generating sites.