Largest Floating Solar Farm Switched on in Netherlands

The project was created in just 6 weeks by Germany’s BayWa in partnership with GroenLeven, a Dutch firm. This is BayWa’s third floating solar construction in the country.

BayWa head of the solar project, Benedikt Ortmann, commented:

In only a few months we built 25MWp of floating PV projects in the Netherlands,

Adding,

Those installations are an important extension to ground-mounted facilities and a smart contribution to improve the so-called “double function” applications for solar, such as AgriSolar, Carports, building-integrated PV and rooftop PV.

The design of floating solar farms can be used on many types of water such as reservoirs, fish farms and former open-cast lignite mines, ideal to create green energy.

Due to the potential of expansion and compatibility Ortmann commented that:

as well as our pipeline in the Netherlands, we are already working on floating PV projects in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain – the potential in Europe is indeed significant.

Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Research has calculated floating installations and has found that installations on decommissioned coal mine lakes could create 15GW in Germany alone, while a World Bank Group had identified the potential for Europe of 20GW “if only 1% of the surface of man-made freshwater reservoirs will be used”.

Ortmann commented:

We’ve proven that floating solar is technically manageable and comes with only slightly higher cost than ground-mounted systems.

Image source by Forbes