China Starts Grid Connection for World's Largest Offshore Solar Farm

Photo: www.globalconstructionreview.com

China Energy Investments has successfully connected the first phase of its 1GW offshore solar farm to the grid, The Caspian Post reports citing foreign media.

Located 8km off the coast of Kenli District in Shandong Province, northeast China, the project will become the world's largest offshore solar farm once completed. It will consist of nearly 3,000 platforms spread across 1,200 hectares of ocean surface.

The 60m-by-35m steel platforms don’t float; they’re fixed to the sea bed with steel fixed-pile foundations.

Upon completion, the project is expected to generate 1,800 GWh of power a year, enough to meet the needs of about 2.7 million people.

China Energy said that output was equivalent to burning 503,800 tonnes of coal.

The company will also use the below-surface steel framework to house fish farms.

Big solar

China Energy is a state-owned company that combines power generation with mining. It had a turnover of $112bn last year, from which it made $6.3bn in profit.

Its other projects include the 3GW Mengxi Lanhai Solar Plant, China’s biggest, in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. That took 14 months to build at a cost of $1.6bn.

It has almost 6 million panels spread over 70 sq km. It was built by Power China on land previously used for coal mining. It includes a number of innovations, including the use of robotic arms, drone docking stations and smart cleaning robots.

The world’s largest operational PV plant is the 3.5GW Midong PV farm in Urumqi, in the western Xinjiang Autonomous Region.