Chernobyl to become a giant solar farm
KIEV Ukraine has begun transforming the radioactive wasteland around the Chernobyl nuclear plant into a huge solar power farm.
The government wants to install enough panels inside the exclusion zone to produce 2.5 gigawatts of power – equivalent to about half the capacity of the plant before the fourth reactor exploded in 1986, spewing plumes of toxic fallout.
Ecology Minister Ostap Semerak said the plans were already being put into action. ‘‘Today we can talk about the first private investment in the zone – a small solar station that is being built,’’ he said.
A Ukrainian-German company has invested US$1.1 million in the station’s construction. It should start producing electricity by the end of June and have a capacity of 1.5 megawatts.
That is only a tiny part of the wider US$1.1 billion Chernobyl energy project, which includes a biogas facility and up to 5000 hectares of solar panels.
Semerak said the idea was to change the perception of Chernobyl from ‘‘a zone of disasters’’ to one of new development. Fifty companies had expressed interest in investing, he said.
The solar project is partly viable because infrastructure remains from 12 planned nuclear reactors envisaged during the Soviet era, including networks of power lines. Low land rents are also an incentive.
There are radiation hotspots in the zone but they have been mapped and can be avoided during installation of the panels. Care will have to be taken to minimise disturbing the soil. The Times REUTERS