South Korea building largest solar installation in world

Yet another "largest solar park in the world" is now under construction, this time in South Korea.

Today is to be the groundbreaking for the $170 million USD-equivalent plant, part of an aggressive effort by South Korea to seek new and renewable energy sources.

The plant, being built in Shinan, near the southwestern tip of South Korea, is scheduled to be completed by late 2008. It is to feature 109,000 rectangular solar modules that will cover a seaside plot the size of 80 football fields. The modules will tilt on a tracking system to generate up to 20 megawatts of electricity.

"The plant will produce more than 27,000 megawatt-hours a year," said Kim Ji Hun, president of the Korean subsidiary of SunTechnics, the German solar power company that will build the plant.

The South Korean plant won't be expected to hold the title of "largest" for very long; a 40 megawatt plant is being planned near Leipzig, Germany, to be operational by 2009.

Germany's Bavaria solar plant is currently the largest in the world, with an 11 MW capacity.

With its emission of greenhouse gases increasing faster than in most developed countries, South Korea agreed to subsidize the solar plant, even though the plant's power is to be as much seven times as expensive as power from nuclear or coal.

South Korea's neighbor China recently pledged to make renewable energy account for 15 percent of the country's total energy supply by 2020 and to spend $200 billion on that effort.

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