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The present and future of floating solar

The present and future of solar

As Feed-in Tariff Program for renewable energy (FIT) to be enforced, the power generating facility which uses solar, wind, water, geothermal, and biomass power are becoming popular. Especially mega solar power plants, the Japanese government even reduce the purchasing price to put a brake on since it became a huge business more than they expected. It’s needless to say solar power business became one of the biggest energy industries. However, many of the mega solar power plants were made in mountain and forest because it is way cheaper than other lands. Cutting down a lot of trees in order to free up land for a solar power plant is like putting the cart before the horse. How come destroying forest which absorbs and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating in order to make clean energy? Making the solar power plant for what? We need to re-think it.
 

Potential of floating solar

The Japanese government aimed to derive 53Gw from renewable energy (for solar power) by 2030. However, the result in 2016 was just about 18Gw. It achieved only 34%. In addition, the capacity of facility operating is slowing down due to the decline of FIT purchasing price. Therefore, floating solar which can be built at cheaper rent has many potentials in this situation.
 

The current situation of a reservoir

Reservoir is for saving water to be used by mainly farming. It is one of the irrigation skills to help developing agriculture, so the farmers or the agricultural organization around the reservoir usually take the responsibility of maintenance. The irrigation system worked well until there were many successors, but the situation of agriculture has changed. It became difficult to keep maintain the reservoir due to the lack of successors and the decline of agricultural industry.

Protect the environment by supporting agriculture

Floating solar has a lot of potential benefits. It doesn’t only make energy but also be able to protect the environment, stop global warming by deriving from renewable energy, and support farms by reducing the burden. It also solves the problem of the decline of the agricultural industry and the lack of successors of farms. Thus, creating solar on a reservoir is like killing two or even more birds with one stone.

Supporting agriculture organization by creating independent revenue sources

Reservoir needs maintenance, and its cost comes from government grants or its organization like land improvement district, irrigation association, or agricultural organization. However, it is becoming hard to keep the reservoir since the decrease of successor and budget. Therefore, they need special financial resources to maintain the reservoir. We support multipurpose utilization of a reservoir in order to lighten their burden and create financial resources.