South Korea’s largest PV plant goes online

South Korean energy producer South-East Power has commissioned a 150 MW solar project in Sinan-gun, in the country’s South Jeolla province. The facility is located on an abandoned salt evaporation pond and is currently South Korea’s largest operational solar park.

The plant includes about 280,000 solar modules with power outputs of 530W to 550W, provided by local manufacturer Topsun. An undisclosed manufacturer supplied 1MW and 2MW inverters.

South-East Power invested KRW 280 billion ($232.5 million) in the project. About KRW 12.8 billion, or 4% of the total, was sourced via crowdfunding among local residents.

“The plant completion will further promote the resident participation profit-sharing business model introduced by the government, so that more residents would participate in the plant business and that profits would be more fairly distributed,” said the South Korean Ministry for Trade, Industry and Energy in a statement. “Out of all resident participation projects, the Sinan solar PV plant boasts the largest share of residents’ investment to date, proving to be a successful public-private partnership project.”

The solar park is expected to generate around 209.7GWh of electricity per year.