In a little while, the UK will have the biggest floating solar farm on earth. The project is in the southwest of London, and it consists of twenty-three thousand solar panels that are floated on a dam. It is intended to produce renewable energy that will be used to run the neighboring water treatment plants. Costing eight-point-three million dollars, the project has been in the development phase for the past more than five years, and it is almost over.
This will be the world’s largest floating solar project, and it is run by Thames Water. The local water treatment plants that will benefit from this are expected to start supplying pure drinking water to ten million residents of the greater London area and south-east of England. Even if the floating solar farm with over twenty-thousand solar panels is huge, it will have very minimal environmental impact. This is because it occupies only six percent of the Queen Elizabeth II man-made reservoir found at Walton-on-Thames, Heathrow. Hence, regular local wildlife species like water birds and a few fish will still have a lot of free areas to rove.
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The very first solar floating farm was launched in the UK in 2014, it had only 800 panels and consumed fewer pounds than this mega renewable energy project will cost ultimately. Upon completion, this is expected to be the largest solar farm, yet the project managers believe that there will be other more influential projects after a while. As Angus Berry, the head of energy at Thames Water said, other similar solar farms are underway. But he also acknowledges that they are pioneering and paving a way for others in the UK and globally.