Around 12,000 solar panels float on Portugal’s Alqueva reservoir, supported by cork and recycled plastic to reduce their carbon footprint

A project in Portugal proves that generating solar energy no longer requires having a roof or large tracts of unused land.

For years, solar energy production has been limited. Homeowners needed to put solar panels on their roofs.

Renewable energy developers needed large tracts of land to build solar farms.

Combining innovation with sustainability is a strategy that EDP considers crucial,

EDP, a global energy company, bucked the trend. The company created a massive floating solar farm on the Alqueva reservoir in Portugal.

Beyond putting solar panels on water, how much further did they push the limits to shrink their environmental footprint?

Setting solar panels on Europe’s largest reservoir

In 2022, EDP launched the floating solar farm in Portugal’s Alqueva reservoir.

Alqueva, an artificial reservoir, is the largest dam in all of Europe.

Before EDP decided to place solar panels on its surface, the reservoir was already operating an existing hydroelectric plant.

Not a deal-breaker for EDP.

In fact, the global energy giant decided to hybridize the renewable energy generation of the reservoir.

By pairing the solar power generation with existing hydroelectric dam infrastructure, they would avoid building new transmission lines.

Both renewable energy sources would share the same grid connection point of the Alqueva dam.

This was the first time Portugal had implemented the concept of hybridisation by pairing hydro and solar energy sources to a single grid connection point.

To make it happen, EDP set up a massive four-hectare floating platform across the reservoir for solar panels.

 

Preserving land while maximizing clean energy output.

EDP decided to build a floating solar farm in order to preserve the surrounding land for agriculture and local communities.

At the same time, they applied hybridization of solar and hydro energy to maximize the clean energy output of the dam.

The floating 4-hectare solar farm would generate 7.5 GWh of clean energy annually, powering roughly 1,500 local families.

While 4 hectares sounds massive, the solar platform only occupies a mere 0.016% of the reservoir’s total surface area.

Alqueva reservoir’s surface area is approximately 25,000 hectares.

Its length stretches roughly 83 to 85 kilometers, with a shoreline that spans 1,200 kilometers.

The reservoir reaches a maximum depth of around 65 to 100 meters.

Needless to say, construction of the floating installation would require a tremendous amount of engineering ingenuity.

That is exactly why EDP enlisted the services of two different companies to help build the floating solar farm.

Solar farm floaters supported by cork and recycled plastic

To make the solar energy project as green as possible, EDP decided to use floaters that mix cork with recycled polymers.

So the company partnered with Corticeira Amorim and Isigenere in order to develop the innovation.

Traditional floating solar platforms are built entirely from virgin petrochemical plastics.

To make the Alqueva platform more sustainable, the engineers blended recycled plastic with natural cork composites.

Replacing the virgin plastic with natural cork reduced the carbon footprint of the supporting floats by approximately 30%.

“Combining innovation with sustainability is a strategy that EDP considers crucial,” said Ana Paula Marques, executive director of EDP.

Given all of the effort, EDP was awarded the 2023 European Sustainable Energy Award for innovation in the renewable energy sector.

Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, the CEO of EDP, said that hybridisation is a logical path for growth for the company.

Going forward, EDP will continue to invest in enabling it to produce cheaper energy, optimise resources and reduce environmental impact.

Portugal setting global benchmarks for hybrid renewable energy projects

EDP’s award-winning innovation in Portugal has set global benchmarks for sustainable, hybrid renewable energy projects.

The project has proved to other renewable energy developers that generating solar energy no longer requires large tracts of land.

The company went beyond putting solar panels on water.

They pushed the limits to shrink their environmental footprint.