A maze of brackish and freshwater ponds covers Taiwan’s coastal plain, supporting aquaculture operations that produce roughly NT $30 billion (US $920 million) price of seafood yearly. Taiwan’s authorities is hoping that the greater than 400 sq. kilometers of fishponds can concurrently produce a second harvest: solar energy.
What’s aquavoltaics?
That’s the impetus behind the brand new 42.9-megawatt aquavoltaics facility within the southern metropolis of Tainan. To construct it, Taipei-based Hongde Renewable Power purchased 57.6 hectares of deserted land in Tainan’s fishpond-rich Qigu district, created earthen berms to delineate the 2 dozen ponds, and put in photo voltaic panels alongside the berms and over six reservoir ponds.
Tony Chang, common supervisor of the Hongde subsidiary Star Aquaculture, says 18 of the ponds are stocked with mullet (prized for his or her roe) and shrimp, whereas milkfish assist clear the water within the reservoir ponds. In 2023, the primary full yr of operation, Chang says his workforce harvested over 100,000 kilograms of seafood. This August, they started stocking a cavernous indoor facility, additionally festooned with photovoltaics, to domesticate white-legged shrimp.
Various different nations have been experimenting with aquavoltaics, together with China, Chile, Bangladesh, and Norway, extending the idea to massive photo voltaic arrays floating on rivers and bays. However nowhere else is the pairing of aquaculture and solar energy seen as so essential to the economic system. Taiwan is striving to massively develop renewable technology to maintain its semiconductor fabs, and photo voltaic is predicted to play a big position. However on this densely populated island—barely bigger than Maryland, smaller than the Netherlands—there’s not a whole lot of open area to put in photo voltaic panels. The fishponds are arduous to disregard. By the top of 2025, the federal government is seeking to set up 4.4 gigawatts of aquavoltaics to assist meet its objective of 20 GW of photo voltaic technology.
Is Taiwan’s aquavoltaics plan unrealistic?
In the meantime, although, photo voltaic builders are struggling to ship on Taiwan’s formidable objectives, whilst some projections counsel Taiwan will want over eight occasions extra photo voltaic by 2050. And aquavoltaics particularly have come underneath scrutiny from environmental teams. In 2020, for instance, reporter Cai Jiashan visited 100 photo voltaic crops constructed on agricultural land, together with fishponds, and located dozens of circumstances the place photo voltaic builders constructed extra photo voltaic capability than the regulation supposed, or secured permits based mostly on guarantees of continued farming that weren’t saved.
Star Aquaculture grows milkfish to assist clear water for its breeding ponds.HDRenewables
On 7 July 2020, Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture responded by limiting photo voltaic growth on farmland, in what the photo voltaic trade known as the “Double-Seven Incident.” Many aquavoltaic initiatives have been canceled whereas others have been delayed. The latter included a 10-MW facility in Tainan that Google had introduced to nice fanfare in 2019 as its first renewable-energy funding in Asia, to produce energy for the corporate’s Taiwan knowledge facilities. The array lastly began up in 2023, three years not on time.
Critics of Taiwan’s renewed aquavoltaic plans thus see the federal government’s objective as unrealistic. Yuping Chen, govt director of the Taiwan Surroundings and Planning Affiliation, a Taipei-based nonprofit devoted to resolving conflicts between photo voltaic power and agriculture, says of aquavoltaics, “It’s claimed to be essential by the federal government, but it surely’s not possible to comprehend.”
How aquavoltaics may revive fishing, increase income
Photo voltaic builders and authorities officers who endorse aquavoltaics argue that such initiatives may revive the island’s conventional fishing group. Taiwan’s fishing villages are getting old and shrinking as youthful folks take metropolis jobs. Local weather change has additionally taken a toll. Extreme storms harm fishpond embankments, whereas excessive warmth and rainfall stress the fish.
4.4
Gigawatts of aquavoltaics that Taiwan needs to put in by the top of 2025
Photo voltaic growth may assist reverse these traits. A number of current research inspecting fishponds in Taiwan discovered that including photo voltaic improves profitability, offering a possibility to reinvigorate communities if agrivoltaic buyers share their returns. Alan Wu, deputy director of the Inexperienced Power Initiative at Taiwan’s Industrial Expertise Analysis Institute, says the Hsinchu-based lab has opened a analysis station in Tainan to attach photo voltaic and aquaculture companies. ITRI helps aquavoltaics amenities increase their revenues by determining how they’ll increase “species of excessive financial worth which are usually harder to boost,” Wu says.
Such high-value merchandise embrace the 27,000 items of sun-dried mullet roe that Hongde Renewable Power’s Tainan web site produced final yr. The brand new indoor facility, in the meantime, ought to increase yields of the comparatively dear whiteleg shrimp. Chang expects the indoor harvests to fetch $500,000 to $600,000 yearly, in comparison with $800,000 to $900,000 from the bigger outside ponds.
The photo voltaic roof over the 100,000-liter indoor development tanks protects the two.7 million shrimp in opposition to climate and chicken droppings. Chang says a patent-pending drain mechanically removes waste from every tank, and in addition sucks out the shrimp once they’re prepared for harvest.
Land that Star Aquaculture put aside for wildlife now attracts endangered birds just like the black-faced spoonbill [left] and the oriental stork [right].iStock (2)
The corporate has additionally put aside 9 p.c of the positioning for wildlife, in response to issues from conservationists. “Egrets, endangered oriental storks, and black-faced spoonbills proceed to make use of the positioning,” Chang says. “If it was all coated with PV, it may impression their habitat.”
Such measures could not fulfill environmentalists, although. In a assessment printed final month, researchers at Fudan College in Shanghai and two Chinese language energy companies concluded that China’s floating aquavoltaic installations—a few of which already span 5 sq. kilometers—will “inevitably” alter the marine setting.
Aquavoltaic amenities which are fully indoors could also be a good more durable promote as they scale up. Toshiba is backing such a plant in Tainan, to generate 120 MW for an unspecified “semiconductor producer,” with plans for a 360-MW enlargement. The ensuing buildings may exclude wildlife from 5 sq. kilometers of habitat. Indoor initiatives may compensate by defending land elsewhere. However, as Chen of the Taiwan Surroundings and Planning Affiliation notes, builders of such websites could not take such measures until they’re required by regulation to take action.
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