China has linked the world’s largest floating solar plant to enter operation so far with wind generation and battery storage.
Completion of the second phase of the Dezhou Dingzhuang floating PV array by Chinese power giant Huaneng International brought the total to 320MW, billed as the largest to enter service so far globally.
Huaneng linked the reservoir-based floating solar with a 100MW wind farm and 8MWh of energy storage to form the Huaneng Dezhou Dingzhuang Integrated Wind and Solar Energy Storage project at the site in Shandong province.
The operator said the trio “share booster stations and output lines, smoothly realising the same field of wind and solar storage".
Floating solar is increasingly tipped to play a key role in the energy transition, especially in Asia where it offers the chance to site generation on assets such as reservoirs in areas where available land is at a premium.
The sector has rapidly evolved from early projects of a few megawatts to the 100MW-plus range, with gigawatt-scale developments already planned around the world.
The Huaneng project will not hold its title for long – a 600MW floating PV plant is slated to begin operations in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh by next year.
