German renewable energy developer Baywa re has started constructing its fourth floating PV project in the Netherlands. The company said the plant will be the largest outside China.
The 27.4 MW array is set to be deployed in around eight weeks on an artificial lake near Zwolle, in the northeastern Netherlands. The installation will feature 73,000 solar modules, 13 floating transformers and 338 inverters.
“We completed 8 MW of the project in just two weeks, most recently up to 1 MW per day,” said Benedikt Ortmann, global director of solar projects at Baywa re. “Thanks to optimized, shorter construction times, we ensure that the expansion of renewables can proceed even faster.”
Baywa said the project will be “almost completely CO2-neutral”. The construction site is already largely self-sufficient because power is provided from the first part of the solar installation and a 600 kW battery.
The developer has already built a 14.5 MW floating array near Zwolle, a 2 MW facility in Weperpolder and an 8 MW floating plant in Tynaarlo, all in the Netherlands. The nation has enormous floating PV potential because of its 52,000ha of shallow inland water.
A recent study by German research institute the Fraunhofer ISE concluded Germany also boasts great floating solar potential. The institute claimed the country has the technical potential to deploy 56 GW of floating PV generation capacity at mining sites.
