Kyocera Corporation has joined Photovolt Development Partners GmbH, ORIX Corporation and Mizuho Bank, Ltd to announce that they have reached a basic agreement to investigate the possibility of operating a 430MW solar power project on the small island of Ukujima, off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan.
The partners began to plan the solar power project in April 2013 and if constructed the facility would be the world’s largest solar power project constructed on agricultural land. It will occupy a combined land area of roughly 6.3 million square metres, equivalent to 134 professional baseball stadiums, distributed among multiple locations and occupying around 25 percent of the island.
Approximately 150 billion yen in investment is planned for development of the project with construction to begin in the financial year 2016 (April 2015 to March 2016). Kyocera will supply approximately 1,720,000 high-output multi-crystalline silicon solar modules to create a 430MW system that would generate an estimated 500,000MWh per year. This represents the equivalent of the power used annually by around 138,800 typical households and will offset roughly 252,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
The project would supply power to the local utility, Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc, via a 60-kilometer undersea cable between Ukujima and the island of Kyushu, based on the national feed-in tariff programme. Land would be leased from respective owners by Ukujima Mega Solar Park Service (UMSPS). A special purpose company, TeraSol G.K., would then sublease the land from UMSPS to construct and operate the solar power systems.
The solar modules would be constructed on stilts in order to maintain the capacity for agricultural use on the land. UMSPS will also support livestock farmers by commissioning the production of oat grass and other pasture grasses, thus contributing to regional development on the island through both the island’s main industry of agriculture and the power generation business.
For additional information:
