Thailand is boosting its share of clean energy and has planned to build the world’s largest floating solar farms to power Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy as Nigeria struggles to keep its dams functional.
Thailand’s state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) will float 16 solar farms with a combined capacity of more than 2.7 gigawatts in nine of its hydroelectric dam reservoirs by 2037. Several of the proposed projects are more than double the size of the world’s floating system now and the venture dwarfs the 1.3 gigawatts of generation installed globally as of October, 2018.
Eight of EGAT’s 16 planned floating plants would be larger than what is now the world’s biggest, a 150-megawatt system floating above a collapsed coal mine in China. Thailand’s biggest will be the 325-MW farm at Sirikit Dam in northern Thailand, scheduled to be completed in 2035. The hydro and solar power will work in synergy in this project and use existing assets and resources.
But Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation has been unable to build and operate simple dams. The Okere George Dam in Iseyin, Oyo State is a textbook example of how successive governments in Nigeria have managed dams. Turbines for the dam were bought in 1982 but 35 years later the equipment procured with public funds for such a critical economic lies waste.
Work on the dam began in 1977, with a plan to generate 3,750 megawatts of hydro-power and irrigate about 2.8 million hectares of farmland. Only the Federal Government can give an account of how much money has been sunk into this corruption cesspool. Oyo State alone has a total of 22 dams, second to Kano State, where 23 dams are domiciled.
While Nigeria struggles to build and maintain dams, Thailand is making an ambitious bet on floating solar, which tends to be more expensive than the ground-mounted units that dominate the sector.
When EGAT builds all its proposed projects, the company says floating solar will account for one tenth of the country’s clean energy sources, compared to just 1 percent of global solar capacity by 2050, according to BloombergNEF.
“As the cost of solar equipment comes down, many developers are looking at water with grid connection,” said Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis for BloombergNEF in London. “This seems to be a great combination of long-term and well-structured planning, with individual projects identified already.”
Locating the plants at existing hydropower reservoirs means the utility won’t need to spend as much on infrastructure tying it into the grid and the system will improve the overall output of the hydropower plants, according to Thepparat Theppitak, deputy governor of the utility. In the future, the company will also use lithium-ion batteries to store electricity produced by the floating plants.
Thailand has been moving towards generating more electricity from renewable sources in recent years. It has set the goal that renewable energy will make up 27 percent of overall capacity by 2037, according to its latest power development plan.
The bidding for the first floating solar project will begin in two months and will be open to international companies, Thepparat said, with the budget set at 2 billion baht ($63 million) for a 45 megawatt farm at Sirindhorn Dam in northeast Thailand. That plant is expected to come online next year.
Floating systems are considered about 18 percent more expensive than land-based ones because of the need for floats, moorings, and more resilient electrical components, according to the World Bank. However, the projects bypass land use in forests and farmlands and water can also help to cool the solar panels, increasing the efficiency by 10 percent.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
