this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Why building solar farm offshore?
I understand why wind farms are built that way, but solar?
The cool water can improve solar panel efficiency. Hotter panels produce less energy.
Makes sense. But does it really negate the elevated construction costs? I must assume such a station is significantly more expensive to build
Not only construction, but also maintenance costs. I imagine they are harder to access, if needed, and salt water is hostile to any structure
True!
Lots of flat space maybe. Or they are just claiming the territorial water that way. Idk.
Little bit of A, little bit of B.
In China there's a lot of big coastal cities with very little open land for development. Putting small amounts of solar onto 1000 skyscrapers vs one big ocean plant, and the additional costs of ocean maintenance start to be less significant.
Similarly, in some places there may be opportunities to align the deployment of the panels with other systems, e.g., a kelp farm or ocean fish farm where you can collocate ocean structures.
There's likely to be lots of new challenges faced by these structures, but it's still good to work the kinks out now with some pilot projects
Outa sight