China Starts World's Biggest Floating Solar Power Project

A unit of China Three Gorges Corp. is building a floating solar power plant, the world’s biggest, at a cost of 1 billion yuan ($151 million) in the nation’s eastern province of Anhui.

China Three Gorges New Energy Company started building the 150-megawatt project in July and part of the plant has been connected to the grid, according to a Dec. 10 statement, Bloomberg reported.

The project features panels fixed to floats on the surface of a lake, which formed after a coal mine collapsed, according to the unit. The entire facility is expected to come on stream by May 2018.

Floating solar is getting bigger in China, where ground-mounted projects are not used to full capacity because of grid congestion. About 5.6% of solar power generation were idled in the first three quarters, according to data from the National Energy Administration.

Before the construction of China Three Gorges’ plant, China’s biggest commissioned floating solar project was a 40-megawatt farm by Sungrow Power Supply Company in the same province, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.