Lightsource BP has partnered with Green Rock Energy on the development of a 150 MW solar-aquaculture project in Taiwan. The Budai project will be one of the largest fishery solar farms in Taiwan, creating 750 employment opportunities during construction, which is expected to commence in June 2023. The project will produce 210,000 MWh of electricity per year, enough to power around 43,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 133,770 tonnes per year once completed.
Lightsource BP’s fishery solar project has been designed to benefit the local environment and community in addition to providing locally generated renewable energy and creating new jobs. The company engaged environmental specialists as well as local fishermen to provide expertise and design for the project to deliver multiple benefits. These include enabling fishermen to farm on around 200 ponds as well as adding saltwater storage ponds to optimise the water management process for the fish farmers.
In May 2022, Lightsource bp intended to develop 1 GW of solar power capacity in France by 2026. To achieve this target, the company plans to build many large-scale ground-mount solar farms. Under the agreement, Lightsource bp planned to engage in public tenders and provide companies with sustainable energy through power purchase agreements.
REGlobal’s Views: Such aquaculture PV plants are a feasible approach to address the land availability related challenges especially in many densely populated Asian countries, that do not have ample land for deployment of solar.
