Floating Solar: can it help ASEAN reverse coal’s continued rise?

Floating solar farms may be gaining traction in Asia. Capacity is still small: by 2019 the big players Japan and China had a combined floating photovoltaic (FPV) installed capacity of 1.3GW. But the ASEAN countries that had virtually nothing before 2019 now have over 51MW and have planned in another 858MW.

A report by Sara Jane Ahmed and Elrika Hamdi at IEEFA explains why FPV is looking better and cheaper at balancing out peaks and troughs than coal powered stations. New transmission infrastructure is costly. Land scarcity matters too. Yet FPV can be built on the water (rivers, lakes, reservoirs) near existing hydropower plants, avoiding any land use and piggybacking on the transmission infrastructure. An FPV plant can be built in months, while coal, gas, and hydro generators take up to three years, and nuclear plants take much longer. FPV is robust enough to withstand typhoons, powerful waves, and winds gusting up to 170 kph – offshore is being considered too. It also, of course, (...) Read more

Article published on energypost.eu