The UAE Gets Its First Floating Solar Power Plant
Fixing and maintaining a floating solar power plant is three times more expensive than the ones deployed on a plane earth.
Over the crystal-clear waters of the Abu Dhabi island Nurai, floats an experimental solar power plant carrying a capacity of 80 kilowatts, as reported by Bloomberg.
Shifting away from the old-school dependence on fossil fuel for electricity, the performance will act as a prototype for similar projects in the region, which has historically been heavily reliant on revenue from oil and gas production.
The Emirati man-made islands could benefit from floating solar power plants to generate low-carbon electricity without sacrificing valuable beach land, however it still comes at a high cost.
Installing and maintaining solar power panels floating on a seabed costs around three times more than land-based projects, according to Stefan Muckstein, the chief operating officer of Enerwhere, the homegrown company that built the project.
“Dealing with waves and corrosion offshore is obviously a lot more challenging technically than installing solar panels on a roof or flat piece of desert,” says Muckstein. “But for a resort island like Nurai this is still far better than taking up valuable beach real estate which tourists are willing to pay much more for.”
