Construction starts on giant floating solar array

The £3.5 million will cover an area of 45,500m2 and will produce 2.7 GWh a year.

United Utilities is building Europe’s largest floating solar array at the Godley reservoir in Hyde, Greater Manchester. 

The £3.5 million, 3MW array, which consists of 12,000 photovoltaic panels and 30,000 plastic floats, will cover an area of 45,500m² and will produce 2.7 GWh a year.

Chris Stubbs, head of renewable energy at United Utilities, said: “It’s a decent size system and scale matters in terms of the project economics. About 33% of the power used at Godley will no longer have to be purchased from the grid. It insulates us from future increasing power prices.

“While floating solar has been deployed elsewhere around the world, most notably in Japan, it is a new technology to the UK. Installations such as the Godley solar scheme will help us to keep energy costs and water customers’ bills low.”

The installation is planned to be operational before Christmas. Barry Tayburn, head of energy services at construction firm Forrest, said: “This is the first time we’ve done this – we’ve pre-assembled the floats and solar panels and they will be launched out onto the reservoir on a platform. There’s a lot of electrical work on the pontoon once it’s out.”

Godley will dwarf the only other floating solar site in the UK, an 800-panel pilot in Berkshire, and will be the second biggest in the world after a scheme in Japan.