UAE power company Masdar and PLN Nusantara Power (PLN NP), a subsidiary of state-owned Indonesian electricity company PT PLN, have signed an agreement to expand the capacity of the 145MW Cirata floating solar (FPV) project in Indonesia to up to 500MW.
This second phase of the project will likely treble the total capacity at the facility, which is already south-east Asia’s largest FPV plant. Masdar and PLN NP began construction on the project in August 2021, and expected the first phase of development, which would create a 145MW solar facility, to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2022.
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This phase of the project remains in development, however, with the backers aiming to finish this construction work “later this year”, before starting on the expansion phase of development.
“The UAE and Indonesia share a common vision of achieving sustainable development and realise that renewables are at the heart of this vision,” said HE Suhail Al Mazrouei, UAE minister of energy and infrastructure. “I am pleased to see that this partnership has been taken to the next level.”
The expansion work is particularly significant considering the potential for floating solar PV in south-east Asia. Earlier this year, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published a report assessing the viability of large-scale floating solar installations in the region, and concluded that the abundance of waterbodies in the area could host up to 825GW of new floating solar capacity.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Indonesia, is also looking to expand the contribution of renewables in meeting its energy demand in the coming years, from renewables accounting for 20% of demand today to 35% by 2025. Projects such as Masdar’s, and research such as that completed by the NREL, demonstrate the potential for floating solar to be deployed more widely across the region.
Last week, Q Energy began construction on a 74.3MW floating solar project in France, which is set to be Europe’s largest floating facility by capacity, as interest in the global floating solar sector grows.