Floating solar array turns Ohio reservoir into power site

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Floating solar array turns Ohio reservoir into power site

D3Energy has energized a 6-megawatt floating solar array on the Village of Monroeville’s reservoir.

A village of 1,300 people in Ohio just built a 6-megawatt power plant on top of its own reservoir.

D3Energy’s system, installed on the Village of Monroeville’s reservoir, contains 9,222 solar modules spread across three floating islands. It feeds electricity directly into the village’s distribution grid.

The project is the largest floating solar installation in Ohio and ranks among the five largest such systems in the US.

So, why put them on water? The same array on land would have taken more than 30 acres, and in farm country there is no spare ground.

The reservoir was already there, already owned by the village.

The panels sit on hollow plastic floats, moulded from high density polyethylene, clipped together into a raft.

The platform gets assembled on the bank, then pushed out onto the water section by section.

Mooring lines hold it in place, running to anchors screwed into the lake bed, dropped as concrete weights, or fixed to the shoreline. The lines are left deliberately slack, so the array rises and falls with the water level instead of fighting it.

Cables run back to shore in floating conduit, to an inverter station on land.

Sitting above water keeps the panels cooler, and cooler silicon is more efficient.

An Oregon State study put that gain at roughly 5 to 15%, while the shade cuts evaporation and slows algae.

Output is about 7,500 megawatt hours a year, roughly 700 homes.

D3Energy, which built it, says it has put in more than half the floating solar running in America.

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