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Floating Solar Plants

June 26, 2017

We recently came across a story about the world’s largest floating solar power plant to date being turned on in China. Despite the article being repeated by many news agencies we found it very difficult to figure out the exact location of the solar plant. Eventually we found this drone footage showing the power plant and we were able to positively identify the location in Google Earth. A few solar panels from the plant were captured at the edge of an image from November, 2016. Strangely enough, we then found this drone footage claiming to be of the same solar plant, but it is clearly a different location. We managed to identify its location too. It is a bit older and can be clearly seen in a November, 2016 image:


Floating solar power plant in the same region as the new record holder.

Nearby, we found a solar plant under construction that looks like it will be partially over the water but anchored to the ground rather than floating.

Solar plant under construction. There are also arrays of stakes off the edge of the above image, so it will be quite a large solar plant.

There were many coal mines in the region and the area has suffered subsidence as a result of not using proper equipments like a Borehole Packer for mining, which created new lakes. The new record-holding floating solar plant is on one of those lakes, so it serves as a symbol of transformation from coal to renewables.


This village was partially flooded due to subsidence. It appears that houses remaining on dry land were demolished.


Another village flooded as a result of subsidence.

We also found a lot of other solar plants in the region built over water, such as this one along a river:

Putting solar panels over water has a number of advantages vs dry land:

  • Solar panels become less efficient as they heat up. The water helps to cool the panels, which increases their efficiency.
  • When used on reservoirs, they reduce evaporation, saving valuable water.
  • In regions where land is in short supply, such as Japan, it avoids wasting valuable space.

Almost all the solar plants we found had the panels aligned east to west, tilted towards the south, to catch the most sun. But one interesting idea we came across was an experimental floating solar plant in South Korea that rotates, significantly increasing efficiency:

 


Rotating solar power plant in South Korea. See on YouTube

It is presumably cheaper to rotate a whole floating solar plant than land based systems that rotate individual panels to track the sun. The rotation observable in the Google Earth imagery is not very much, but that is likely a consequence of the fact that most imaging satellites have orbits arranged so that they take pictures around mid-day, so we do not see the early morning and late afternoon positions.

We came across this article discussing the advantages of floating solar panels, and it mentions that solar plants built over water are often combined with fisheries. It also mentions that the Anhui region of China, where the first solar plants we looked at above are situated, is expected to get around 3.2 GW of floating solar between 2016-2018, so the world record 40 MW plant is just a small part of a much bigger scheme.

For some pictures of floating solar around the world see this website.

For the locations of the places mentioned above as well as many other floating solar plants in China, Japan, and the United Kingdom, download this KML file. We have also included a few dry land solar plants that we found nearby while looking for floating plants, and a few major solar plants in China.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: solar

Fairy Circles in South Africa

June 23, 2017

We recently took a trip from Cape Town to the Northern Cape Province in South Africa and on the way noticed what looked like patches of bare ground or nearly bare ground:

The above are photos we took, but you can also explore the region in Street View.

This reminded us of Fairy Circles, a phenomenon in Namibia. Last time we looked at Fairy Circles we also noted a similar phenomenon in Australia. We have also seen similar patterns around the world created by ants and termites. And in South America we looked at patterns that are apparently created by worm poo.

At the time, we did not think to try and find one near the road and see if we could see any ant activity. Once we got back from the trip we had a look in Google Earth and found the patches are even more visible from above and cover a vast region:

We believe these circles are created by ant or termite colonies. They can even be seen in cultivated fields, which suggests the soil is permanently changed. The Namibian and Australian fairy circles are found mostly on very flat land and scientists believe water plays a role in their formation. However, these ones can be seen on hillsides and slopes and seem to be stopped only by extremely rocky ground.

In most cases, the spots consist of areas of reduced vegetation, but in some places the pattern seems to be reversed, with more vegetation in the spots:

In some cases there are bare rings:

For the locations of some of the screenshots above see this KML file. But be sure to explore more as they cover a vast region.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: fairy circles

Landslide and Tsunami in Greenland

June 22, 2017

Last Saturday, on 17th June, a landslide in Greenland caused a tidal wave, killing four people and injuring nine in the community of Nuugaatsiaq. Two other communities, Igdlorssuit and Viaqornat, were apparently affected. Read more about it on the Landslide Blog.

We thought it would be interesting to see the area in Google Earth using Sentinel-2 imagery. We downloaded the Sentinel-2 image from 19th June, 2017 and imported it into Google Earth:


The relative positions of the landslide and Nuugaatsiaq.Copernicus Sentinel data, 2017.

The distance between the landslide and the village of Nuugaatsiaq is about 30 km. Igdlorssuit is about 60km from the landslide site and Viaqornat just over 100 km.


The region as seen in Google Earth imagery.


The village of Nuugaatsiaq as seen in a DigitalGlobe image from 2012.

Here is a YouTube video showing the Tsunami arriving at Nuugaatsiaq:

To see the relevant section of the Sentinel-2 image in Google Earth, download this KML file
.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: greenland, landslide, tsunami

A Landslide in California with Planet Imagery

June 21, 2017

We love Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery for their easy accessibility and global coverage, but they are rather low resolution at 10 m per pixel for Sentinel-2 and 15 m per pixel for Landsat. Commercial satellite imaging company Planet, now covers the globe with greater regularity and higher resolution (typically about 3 m per pixel) and for the US state of California, releases the imagery under creative commons licence within a couple of weeks of capture. We recently came across a large landslide that occurred along the Californian coast in an area known as Big Sur.

We were able to find it in Planet’s tool ‘Planet Explorer’ for browsing their imagery. You need to sign up to view daily imagery, but signup is easy and free.


The Big Sur Landslide as seen in Planet imagery.

Once you have signed up you can try going here to see the location in Planet Explorer. Try comparing before and after images with the built in ‘compare’ feature.

Filed Under: Site News Tagged With: landslide, planet

Google Earth Quiz Maker

June 19, 2017

Thank you to GEB reader Dieter van Werkum for letting us know about a Google Earth quiz maker he has created. See here for a sample of what it can produce, and the source code is on Github. He has adapted it to work with the new web based Google Earth as well as Google Earth classic.


Flyto Quiz in Google Earth classic.

The project consists of a KML file which you can modify to create your own multiple choice quiz. When the user gets the answer right, Google Earth flies you to the next placemark. The KML file contains all the instructions you need to customise it for your own quiz, although it would be helpful to know some HTML and CSS for the best results.


Flyto Quiz in Google Earth for Chrome.

It would actually serve as a useful template to start with if you are creating an ordinary tour of any kind. It can easily be adapted to have ‘previous’ and ‘next’ buttons instead of quiz answers and any content you like in the popups.

Filed Under: Site News

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