Britain's first floating solar panel project has been installed on a reservoir in Berkshire.
800 panels are placed on the water surface. This is said to make such a project even more lucrative than land solar panels, as no agricultural land is sacrificed to make way for similar devices.
The Guardian reports that, "the scheme is eligible for renewable electricity subsidies, which are funded by energy bill-payers."
The company, Floating Solar UK have said they prefer their products to be used in reservoirs ideally, rather than scenic lakes.
The project cost £250,000 to install and the owner, Mr Mark Bennett, has said he expects to earn £20,500 per year from subsidies, and make further savings of £24,000 a year because he will no longer have to buy power from the National Grid.
Cedrec's take
Placing solar panels on water is certainly something new, although it is apparently popular in Japan. Japan has some similar limitations as the UK, both are small areas with large, populous cities. Placing products such as the "sunflower" innovation in such crowded areas is implausible, so using what is perfectly usable space on water surfaces is very clever.
Now that the space has been exploited for placement of the products, theoretically the panels should be every bit as efficient and perhaps more so than regular land panels, due to the nature of water. Just as our skin reacts to the sun more when in water, due to the reflecting nature of swimming pools and the sea, it stands to reason that the sunlight could reflect back onto these panels.
It is a good idea to at least try. Agricultural and scenic lands are cause for much protest from people when it comes to solar and wind farms, so perhaps a compromise of using an existing structure such as a reservoir, used for irrigation and cleansing, is one route to general public acceptance.
