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Tuesday, June 13, 2017
China turns on the world’s largest floating solar farm
The Chinese Government has announced that they've completed the
construction of the world's largest floating solar farm, and it's now
producing energy.
Sungrow Power Supply have
created created a 40-megawatt solar power plant, which sits atop of a
flooded former coal-mining town in China's eastern Anhui province.
From Smithsonian by Jason Daley
Last week, workers switched on a solar energy plant capable of producing 40 megawatts of power, which floats on a manmade lake in China’s Anhui province near the city of Huainan, reports Sarah Zheng at the South China Morning Post.
The array is the largest floating solar project in the world, though at the brisk pace China is building new renewable projects it’s unlikely to hold that title very long.
The floating solar farm occupies an area that used to be used for coal mining in Anhui province. Photo: Handout
Built by the company Sungrow Power Supply, the power plant will produce enough energy to power 15,000 homes, Zheng reports.
While the company has not revealed the exact size of the operation, it produces twice as much energy as the previous holder of the largest-floating-solar-plant title, which is located in the same area and was launched by the company Xinyi Solar in 2016.
The new floating solar plant was connected to the grid in Huainan, Anhui in May.
Photo : Handout
Anhui province is a coal-rich region, and the Sungrow plant is located on a lake that was once the site of intensive mining.
Heavy rains filled the area with water.
As Zhen reports, the depth of the lake varies from 12 feet to 30 feet.
Floating solar power plant North of Yingtaohuan (CNES imagery)
So why build solar plants on top of lakes and reservoirs?
Fiona Harvey at The Guardian explains that building on bodies of water, especially manmade lakes that are not ecologically sensitive, helps protect agricultural land and terrestrial ecosystems from being developed for energy use.
The water also cools the electronics in the solar panels, helping them to work more efficiently, reports Alistair Boyle for The Telegraph.
For similar reasons Britain built a 23,000-panel floating solar farm on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir near Heathrow airport in 2016 to help power the Thames Water treatment plant.
The Sungrow solar farm is just one tiny piece in China’s push towards renewable energy.
According to Irina Slav at Business Insider, the country recently announced it would invest $361 billion in renewable power by 2020, and by 2022 could produce 320 gigawatts of wind and solar power and 340 gigawatts of hydropower.
Zheng reports that currently renewables are responsible for 11 percent of China’s energy and may reach 20 percent by 2030.
The water helps to cool the surface of the solar panels, reducing the risk of overheating.
Photo: Handout
The Longyangxia Dam Solar Park on the Tibetan plateau hosts 4 million solar panels that produce 850 megawatts of energy.
Even that will soon be eclipsed by a project in the Ningxia Autonomous Region, which will have 6 million solar panels and produce 2 gigawatts of power.
Links :
Monday, June 12, 2017
Near-shore phytoplankton bloom captured by Space
Algal bloom off Belgian coast
Oostende Belgian coast with the GeoGarage platform (Vlaamse Hydrografie)
From ESA by
Last year, the Sentinel-2A satellite captured an intense algal bloom very close to the Belgian coast.
The high-resolution capabilities of Sentinel-2’s main instrument are allowing scientists to monitor algae blooms in areas previously not possible to observe with satellites.
Like many European countries, Belgium regularly reports on the quality of its coastal waters to the European Commission.
Water quality measurements have been made from ships for this purpose since the 1980s and, for over a decade, satellite data from Envisat and from Sentinel-3A have been used to supplement ship-based measurements.
While these satellite data have been vital for water quality monitoring, they do not provide the adequate coverage nor resolution for monitoring close to the coast.
Chlorophyll concentrationOn 1 May 2016, the Sentinel-2A satellite captured an algal bloom close to Belgium’s coast.
Thanks to the multispectral capabilities of Sentinel-2’s main instrument, chlorophyll a absorption and hence concentration can be derived, revealing an intense phytoplankton near the Port of Ostend.
The Sentinel-2 mission, however, carries a high-resolution multispectral instrument that has great advantages for monitoring near-shore waters.
With this finer resolution data now available, scientists can properly analyse the water within 2 km of the coast.
In May 2016, scientists discovered an intense algal bloom in a previously ‘unseen’ zone.
Owing to the bloom’s extent and the shallow water depth, it would have been nearly impossible to detect or sample using shipborne measurements.
“This satellite image was a surprise to me!” said Kevin Ruddick, scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences.
“I have spent a few weeks each year over the last 20 years making measurements at sea from the Belgica research vessel, but we do not get so close to the coast because the water is too shallow. The ship must have been quite close to such blooms in May 2016 but did not even realise that this was happening.”
Algae blooms are a normal phenomenon, providing food for marine organisms.
But sometimes they can be harmful to humans and animals when they produce toxic substances, or occur too often or last too long, depleting the concentration of oxygen in the water.
Water turbidity off the Belgian coast
On 1 May 2016, the Sentinel-2A satellite captured an algal bloom close to Belgium’s coast.
The multispectral capabilities of Sentinel-2’s main instrument allow for an estimate of water turbidity.
In this example from May 2016, the algal species is almost certainly phaeocystis globosa, which is not toxic and does not noticeably deplete oxygen in Belgian waters because these waters are highly turbulent and quickly draw down oxygen from the atmosphere.
Instead, it creates foam on the beaches which is a nuisance for beach-goers as well as fishermen as it makes their nets sticky and difficult to manage.
Nonetheless, it is important to monitor blooms so that fishermen, fish farmers and public health officials know about such events as soon as possible – even more so when the species may be toxic.
With its 13 spectral channels, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission’s novel imager can capture water quality parameters including algal blooms, as well as surface concentration of chlorophyll and turbidity (or water clarity) – giving a clear indication of the state of the near-shore environment.
This information is particularly important for meeting the monitoring requirements of the European Commission’s Water Framework and Marine Strategy Framework Directives.
The Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences is funded by the European Commission's FP7 Research Programme HIGHROC Project to develop and test methods to use Sentinel-2 data for this purpose.
Links :
- GeoGarage blog : Climate change is making algal blooms worse
Sunday, June 11, 2017
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