France inaugurates the largest floating solar power plant in Europe on a lake in Vaucluse
Floating solar energy is making its appearance in France with the inauguration a few days ago of the largest floating photovoltaic power plant in Europe. It is installed on an abandoned artificial lake in the municipality of Piolenc, in the Vaucluse. With its 47 panels, it should supply nearly 000 people.
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It is an amazing image. 47 photovoltaic panels cover half of an artificial lake in Piolenc, a town in Vaucluse. The project, in the cards for ten years, was inaugurated this Friday October 000 in the presence of Elisabeth Borne, Minister of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, and Brune Poirson, Secretary of State for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition.
This 17 megawatt floating solar power plant, the first of such a significant size in France and the largest in Europe, will supply nearly 5 homes, or 000 people. It was installed on an artificial lake, in an old quarry of aggregates extraction, of which the town hall did not know what to do. Thanks to this project and three wind turbines also installed in the town, Piolenc can now boast of being positive energy, and therefore producing more electricity than it consumes.
Improved performance
Currently, in France, only a few very small floating solar parks of a few tens of kilowatts had been tested. But the potential is enormous. According to Arkuo Energy, which developed the project in the Vaucluse with the company Ciel & Terre, if we installed floating solar power plants on all French artificial lakes and dams, we could produce ten gigawatts of energy, the equivalent of ten nuclear reactors.
The advantage is to settle on non-useful surfaces where the sun does not compete with other uses.
In addition, the proximity of water allows a better yield, 5 to 10% higher compared to conventional photovoltaic power plants.There remains the environmental question. Floating power plants never completely cover water bodies to let in light, but some associations are concerned about the impact on underwater fauna and migratory birds, which can confuse the panels with water.