Google recently signed its first environmentally friendly energy agreement in Asia - building solar projects on a series of large fish ponds in Taiwan, China.
Due to factors such as population density and competition, solar energy projects are becoming more and more common in Asia. According to data from World Bank , the global floating solar market size is expected to exceed 400 gigawatts. A recent U.S. Department of Energy report said 10% of U.S. energy supply may come from floating solar.
Eight years ago, Google unveiled an ambitious plan to build a wind energy project from New York to Virginia in the Atlantic Ocean. This huge "underwater spine" is progressing slowly, but Google is advancing its first water-based renewable energy project—it is slightly smaller in scale, with solar panels neatly distributed over a series of fish ponds in Taiwan. This deal marks Google's entry into the Asian renewable energy market.
Google recently became the first company to acquire under the 2017 Taiwan Electricity Act, which allows non-utilities to buy renewable energy. For the 10 MW solar cell array located in Tainan City, Taiwan, China, Google will install a telephone pole above the fishing pond with solar panels on the top. Under the “long-term agreement” between the two parties, the solar array will be connected to the same regional grid of Google’s Chuanghua County data center.
The idea of building solar projects on water - known as floating photovoltaics (flotovoltaics), is becoming increasingly common.
Last year, mainland China built the world's largest floating solar farm on a lake once a coal mine, one of several flooded mines it used for solar projects. It includes 166,000 solar panels with a capacity of 40 megawatts and can power 15,000 homes. The World Economic Forum report said that by 2020, China is expected to account for 40% of the world's new solar panels. Japan is a global leader in floating photovoltaic installations, with more than 60 projects since its first completion in 2007.
Google's fishing pond project may be different from many water-based solar projects, which use structures such as pontoon bridges to float solar panels directly on the water. Although solar panels can be floated directly on the surface of the fish farm — which has been completed on overseas projects — Google’s project development team has not yet decided how the solar panels will be above the water, according to a company spokeswoman. She would only share a link with a Taiwanese website, which includes several examples of water-based designs that the project might eventually adopt. Google is currently focusing on the poles that hang solar panels on it, a concept known as the “top” system.
Because the panels that block sunlight reduce evaporation of the main reservoirs, sunshade is considered a key advantage of floating photovoltaic power generation. In Google’s case, project designs can increase fishing yields, as the elevated panels provide optimal space for fish, while also providing shade for them. The finding is based on an experiment conducted by the Fisheries Research Institute (COA) department of the Taiwan Agricultural Commission.
floating solar project also has logistical advantages. They can be placed near the existing transmission infrastructure of the hydropower station, close to the demand center.
U.S. adoption rate lags far behind Asia
Although the United States became the site of the first ever floating solar project in 2008, its adoption of this technology is still lags far behind Asia.
At the same time, some new progress has emerged in the United States that attract people's attention. Last July, the city of Los Angeles made preliminary approval of the 11.6-megawatt floating solar power plant at the Van Norman Lakes Reservoir, but it faces more regulatory hurdles. Last October, a sewage treatment pool in Kelseaville, California completed a small floating solar project (252 kW) for local municipalities. Chris Bartle, business development manager at
Ciel & Tierra, said more municipalities and landowners are looking at floating solar. Ciel & Tierra is a floating solar project company based in Petaluma, California, which produces solar panels that can float and be fixed on water.These solar panels operate primarily on the Kelseyville project. Bartle said industrial ponds, sewage treatment plants, agricultural ponds, water treatment plants and municipal reservoirs are all interested in the concept. If approved, the Los Angeles project will be the largest in the U.S., although Bartle said other projects are longer-lasting and larger-scale—they are all in megawatts, and these projects will increase confidence in the market.
The Orlando Utilities Commission has built floating solar panels at a location that was once designated as the future coal power plant, a project visited by billionaire green energy advocate Michael Bloomberg on Monday.
Bartle says that in addition to providing on-site power and electricity that can be sold to third parties, many potential project sites are interested in this design to prevent the growth of algae on water (a big problem in drinking water supply) and as a way to reduce moisture evaporation through shade (a big problem in drought-prone areas).
Floating solar energy market has huge potential
According to a report by the World Bank, floating solar energy is still far behind the installation volume on land, but its growth rate is rapidly climbing. The installed floating solar capacity increased from 132 MW in 2016 to more than 1 GW last year. The ground-mounted photovoltaic system reached 1 GigaW in 2000. The World Bank said the "conservative" estimates suggest that there may be 400 gigawatts of floating solar energy worldwide.
U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found in a December 2018 report that by installing solar projects on 24,000 artificial U.S. reservoirs, up to 10% of U.S. energy supply can be met. NREL estimates that electricity generated through water projects will also save 2.1 million hectares of land.
Floating solar project took off in Asia for two reasons: high population density and competition for available land. Experts say these factors will become more important globally as part of future site selection of solar projects.
The marginalized local community will also consider some of these project decisions.
"Local landowners will receive reliable income from renting space above the fish pond to solar projects," said Marsden Hanna, senior director of global energy markets and strategy at Google Cloud.
Hanna said that the construction, operation and maintenance of solar projects will create jobs, but Google refused to quantify the upcoming jobs or the additional income local landowners will receive. Solar power plants usually create more short-term construction work for the construction phase rather than permanent work in power project operations.
"As the Taiwan government takes further steps to eliminate market barriers and reduce renewable energy costs, we hope more companies will buy renewable energy and promote larger projects in Taiwan," Hanna said.
According to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency, the renewable energy sector created more than 10 million jobs; in 2017 alone, the solar energy sector created 3.4 million jobs (number of people) — even as jobs in the U.S. solar industry fell due to the Trump administration’s tariffs on foreign expert groups.
solar energy prices plummet
"In addition to low-carbon environmental considerations, renewable energy has many attractive aspects. Its prices are falling to all-time lows, which makes sense from a price point of view," said Daniel M. Kammen, an energy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The price of solar power generation has dropped significantly over the past decade, from hundreds of dollars per megawatt-hour to the current $25/MWh, and the price is expected to drop to $14/MWh. Wood Mackenzie, an energy and natural resources consulting firm, predicts.
In a recent interview, Google's head of market development for energy markets Mike Terrell said that investment in renewable energy has "business significance", especially given its low prices. In the third quarter of 2018, corporate buyers of renewable energy projects led by tech companies grew the fastest in a single quarter when it comes to buying large solar projects, from 13% to 15%, according to Wood Mackenzie.
Since 2010, Google has signed more than 30 solar and wind projects in North and South America and Europe, making it the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy. The Taiwan project is not the first Google Solar to be built in an unusual or difficult place. Google buys electricity from a project located in Chile's notorious remote Atacama desert, a place known as "one of the driest places on the planet." The El Romero solar power plant provides clean energy equivalent to 240,000 households, making it the largest solar power plant in Latin America and one of the largest power plants in the world.
In January this year, Google announced that with the construction of its new data center (energy-intensive operations) in Tennessee and Alabama, it will purchase 413 megawatts of energy from 1.6 million solar panels that are under construction by NextEra Energy, Invenergy and the Tennessee River Basin Administration. Two 150 MW solar projects in the TVA protocol will be Google's largest ever.
This time, the purchase of 10 megawatt solar array product in Tainan City, Taiwan, China, is jointly organized by Google to Diode Ventures, Taiyen Green Energy, Yunbao Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (J&V) and New Green Power Company - is expected to be completed in 2020, at a critical moment when Google invests in Taiwan's data centers. Taiwan recently revised its electricity bill to enable non-utilities to buy renewable energy directly. These revisions are part of Taiwan’s new energy policy, aiming to phase out nuclear energy by 2025 and increase the proportion of renewable energy generation to 20%. Google was the first corporate electricity buyers to take advantage of the revised law.
