Photovoltaic solar parks
Introduction
A solar park is a large-scale electrical power generation facility that uses interconnected photovoltaic solar panels to convert light energy from the sun into electricity. Solar parks differ from solar farms and other solar installations in that they supply energy exclusively to the public grid and on a large scale, instead of to a network of local users. The goal of these installations is to provide electricity to the electrical grid and the term “utility-scale solar” is sometimes used to describe these types of projects. Most solar parks are owned by energy production companies. Solar parks are usually located in areas with high solar incidence, either on land or in bodies of water. Their size varies from a few MW to, in some cases, GW. The size depends on factors such as investment, land availability and the region's electricity demand.
History
The first experiments related to solar parks began in the late 1970s and during the 1980s, especially in countries with an active interest in renewable energy such as the United States and Germany. The oil crisis of the 1970s boosted interest in alternative energy sources, boosting solar energy.
These solar parks were more of pilot installations with very modest capacities compared to current standards, but they served as tests to validate the viability of solar energy on a commercial scale.
The Carrizo Plain solar park, in California (United States), was one of the first industrial-scale solar parks. It was built in 1983 with an initial capacity of 5.2MW.[1].
During the 1990s, advances in photovoltaic technology and greater awareness of the effects of climate change led governments to provide fiscal incentives for the construction of the first solar parks for commercial purposes. Spain was a pioneer country in promoting the adoption of photovoltaic energy with the publication in 1997 of the “photovoltaic solar energy plan” with the objective of installing solar parks with a capacity of 700MW in 10 years. Subsequently, Germany published the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) in 2000.[2].
The first decade of the century marks a period of exponential growth in the development of solar parks. Countries such as Germany, Spain, the United States and, later, China, invest heavily in large-scale solar energy production. Production promotion policies such as feed-in tariffs, tax credits and renewable portfolio obligations are adopted. At the same time, the efficiency of solar panels improves and costs decrease drastically due to competition. In this same decade, in 2007, the world's first floating solar park was installed in Aichi, Japan.[3].