“Solar islands” to provide Japan with power

Japan intends to float 10 islands made of solar panel arrays.

The idea is to keep these unique energy installations safe from earthquakes and provide a stable source of renewable energy.

Plans have been made to install 10 floating solar parks with a combined power capacity of 20MW. The first two installations will be located in a nature reserve in Saitama prefecture and a swamp in Osaka. Both will have a total capacity of 3MW.

Floating solar panels are already used at a Nappa Valley winery in California as a means of creating solar electricity, without using valuable land for the solar arrays.

Japan is also experimenting with floating wind turbines. Japan has already installed a 100 kilowatt wind turbine about half a mile off the coast of the Nagasaki prefecture.

Performance and maintenance data are being collected tto provide the basis for a decision to go forward with building a massive 2MW turbine.

Floating renewable energy sources on man-made structures offer Japan an effective way to reduce the risk of damage from the numerous earthquakes that it experiences every year.