Hongkong Electric Holdings, the utility controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing, formally started up the city’s biggest solar-power project today as part of efforts to help cut pollution.
Solar panels on the roof of the company’s Lamma island power station are capable of generating a total of 550 kilowatts, Hongkong Electric said in a statement today. That’s less than 1 percent of the overall capacity of the 3,700-megawatt plant, which uses coal as its main fuel source.
“It’s quite difficult to develop a large-scale solar project as you need a lot space, and in Hong Kong, we don’t have that,” HK Electric General Manager of Projects Frank Lau told reporters visiting the plant. “We will gain more experience and build from this, while gaining the environmental benefits.”
Hong Kong lags behind rival financial hubs including Singapore and Tokyo as the city struggles with air pollution, according to a quality-of-life survey by Mercer Consulting. In response to public demands for cleaner ways to generate power, utilities Hongkong Electric and CLP Holdings Ltd. have been set targets by the city’s government to cut emissions and pollution.
The HK$23 million ($3 million) solar project will produce enough electricity for 150 families for a year and cut 520 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to the statement.
The panels can generate electricity even in cloudy weather, Managing Director Tso Kai-sum told reporters. Their capacity may be expanded to 1 megawatt, the utility said in its statement, without giving a timeline.
Wind Farms
The government wants 2 percent of the city’s power to be produced by renewable energy by 2012. Under the city’s revised Scheme of Control system introduced in 2009, renewable-energy plants can earn an 11 percent return on investment, compared with a rate of less than 10 percent for coal-fired generators.
Hongkong Electric is planning a wind farm off the coast of Lamma island to reduce emissions. The project could cost as much as HK$3 billion and can produce about 100 megawatts of electricity, according to details of a feasibility study released in February.
The utility aims to start up the wind farm in 2015, Tso said.
