- The Japanese unit of French floating PV specialist Ciel & Terre is installing a floating solar plant at Hirakawa Elementary School in Japan’s Kagoshima Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu.
The French company provided the floating solution. This project is the first of its kind, but it will be repeated in other Japanese municipalities with the support of ELM, an EPC and local developer.
In Japan, some schools and deteriorated outdoor swimming pools are no longer used. The deployment of floating solar would be an interesting new use for such infrastructure, said the companies.
Nearly 6,000 Japanese schools could be eligible to host a floating solar power plant. Ciel & Terre Japan said in a statement that the main challenge for these small PV installations will be to minimize system and transport costs.
“The advantage of installing floating solar panels on a swimming pool is that we can reuse existing pool facilities such as the fences around the pool and the changing room for the storage area. There is also no need to excavate the land due to the concrete poolside,” said Saori McMahon, developer and project manager at Ciel & Terre
Author: Marie Beyer
This article was originally published in pv magazine and is republished with permission.
