Image: Ginlong

Sinohydro Bureau 12, a Chinese infrastructure construction specialist, is overseeing the development of a 300 MW solar project on tidal flats in Xiangshan County, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang.

Chinese inverter supplier Solis, which is supplying components for the project, said that the plant will be built across 4,516 acres of water surface. It will be the world’s largest solar PV plant to be built on a coastal tidal flat, it claimed.

“It is a grid-parity project built outside China’s feed-in tariff scheme,” a company spokesperson said. “The first 3 MW unit has already been grid-connected.”

The plant will feature 685,216 monocrystalline modules with a power output of 440 W, provided by an undisclosed manufacturer. It will also include 255 kW K-EHV-5G 1,500 V string inverters from Solis.

“The inverter solution is comprehensively optimized and protected from the aspects of waterproofing, sandproofing, corrosion prevention, structure, and internal electrical arrangement and protective algorithm,” Solis said. “This ensures the inverter can operate for a long time, efficiently, safely, and stably in the harsh environment.”

The string inverters, which boast IP66 protection, are being installed at least 5 meters above the seabed, due to tidal fluctuations. Project construction has been affected by these fluctuations, which made the installation process particularly challenging.

“We had to increase the investment of personnel and equipment and optimized the construction plan to ensure that the project was completed on time,” the Ginlong spokesperson said.

The solar facility, which is owned by Sinohydro Bureau 12, is expected to generate around 400,000,000 kWh of electricity per year.