Engineering, Energy - Floating Solar Plant Makes 13.7MW

Japan's newest and largest floating solar power plant has begun operation on a dam lake outside Tokyo.

Putting a 13.7MW solar generation facility on the lake at Chiba's Yamakura Dam is a perfect fit for densely-packed Japan, where usable land is at a premium.  The surrounding agricultural fields can keep producing while the surface of the lake is utilized.

Yamakura Dam is a reservoir for industrial use.  The floating solar operation is a joint venture between Tokyo Century and Kyocera, which rented 180,000 square meters of water surface. 

The floating mounting systems host 50,904 solar panels, with a total capacity of 16,170 megawatt hours (MWh) per year .  That's enough to power approximately 4,970 typical Japanese households, which admittedly are a tad smaller than Aussie homes and (if they're recently constructed) more energy efficient.