World’s Biggest Floating Solar Farm Powers up 

Outside London

On a large man-made lake on the outskirts of London, work is nearing completion on what will soon be Europe’s largest floating solar power farm – and will briefly be the world’s biggest.

But few are likely to see the 23,000 solar panels on the Queen Elizabeth II lake at Walton-on-Thames, which is invisible to all but Heathrow passengers and a few flats in neighbouring estates.

This will be the biggest floating solar farm in the world for a time - others are under construction.

Five years in planning and due to be finished in early March, the 6 million British pounds project will generate enough electricity to power the utility’s local water treatment plants for decades. The energy will help provide clean drinking water to a populace of close to 10 million people in greater London and the south-east of England, a huge and often unrecognised drain on electricity, rather than nearby homes.

Why put solar panels on water? The answer is that the water is there, and might as well be used for this purpose. Floating panels, covering only about 6% of the reservoir, will have no impact on the ecosystem, he says.

Though waterbirds live on the margins, and a thin layer of litter is visible at the shore, the reservoir is not intended as a home to wildlife, and any fish living here are accidental visitors. Eighteen metres deep, it provides water for Londoners. Although most of the population growth in London tends to be towards the east, most of the water still comes from reservoirs to the west of the city.

But future projects to make use of water companies’ reservoirs in order to provide solar power might be in doubt.

The current government has reduced subsidies for solar and wind power. Experts said that this would not affect this project, but might have an effect on whether follow-up projects could go ahead. “We have had to look very closely at the economics of this, at all stages,” they said. “It is not clear what the future economics would be for other potential projects.”