The Araucária Floating Photovoltaic Plant rests on the surface of the Billings Reservoir in Brazil’s São Paulo state. (Photo courtesy of EMAE)
Brazil in the next few months will begin bringing online its biggest floating solar farm, a means of renewable-power production that is farthest along in Asia but has begun spreading to other parts of the world. The new farm will initially comprise a five-megawatt, R$30 million (US$6 million) array of 10,500 solar panels floating atop a man-made reservoir that supplies most of the water for São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. A R$450 million (US$91 million) second-phase calls for 160,000 more panels to be installed on the same reservoir by the end of 2025 to create 37 or 38 new two-megawatt systems. This would boost the floating solar farm’s total installed capacity to about 80 megawatts—sufficient, organizers say, to power 64,000 households. Even in its initial five-megawatt stage, the solar farm on the 127-square-kilometer (49-sq.-mile) Billings... [Log in to read more]
