A floating solar farm will provide clean drinking water to citizens in London

L’energia elettrica rinnovabile prodotta dalle celle servirà per alimentare l’impianto di depurazione dell’acqua che serve milioni di cittadini di Londra.

It is already considered Europe’s largest floating solar farm. With 6.3MW of power installed, 23,000 solar panels will produce 5.8 million kWh per year. The project has been realised on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir at Walton-on-Thames, built in the 1960s, and boasts over 19,000 cubic metres of water serving 10 million people in London and Southern England.

 

impianto
Floating solar array

 

Thames Water is the owner of the site that as of March, when the project is due to be finished, will be powered by renewable energy. “As long as setting the objective of generating 33% of energy from renewable sources by 2020, Thames Water has committed to becoming more efficient in order to reduce its connection to the grid,” writes the group. Today, “12.5% of electricity need comes from renewable sources, registering a 4% increase compared to the previous year. In 2015, Thames Water committed to supporting the Paris Agreement to limit the average global temperature rise to less than 2°C, and this project will help achieve this goal”.

 

Un altro impianto realizzato da Lightsource.
Another array realised by Lightsource

 

Japan has already paved the way with Kyocera’s plant in the Chiba Prefecture. A stretch of water is once again the perfect surface where to install a PV plant of such dimensions: the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir is artificial and isn’t home to marine wildlife – except a few waterbirds that only live on the margins. Moreover, as reported by The Guardian, “floating panels, covering only about 6% of the reservoir, will have no impact on the ecosystem.

“We’re delighted to have begun work on another ambitious milestone project for Lightsource with our first floating solar installation,” said Nick Boyle, CEO at Lightsource, one of UK’s largest PV operators. “Over the last five years we’ve successfully completed ground and roof installations of all shapes and sizes, but this project has some obvious differences and has presented our team with a set of fresh challenges to overcome”.

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