Japan has finally figured out what to do with its abandoned golf courses [View all]
Japan has finally figured out what to do with its abandoned golf courses
Ariel Schwartz, provided by
Published 9:14 am, Thursday, July 16, 2015
http://www.chron.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Japan-has-finally-figured-out-what-to-do-with-its-6388551.php
solar plant
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This is what's happening in Japan, where developers built too many golf courses over the last few decades after demand shot up in the 1980s. Now the industry is in decline, with participation in the sport down 40% from the 1990s, and abandoned golf courses are starting to pop up.
Kyocera's solution: turn the abandoned green space into solar farms. Japan has been hungry for alternative energy ever since the 2011 Fukushima disaster made nuclear power an unattractive option in the country, and golf courses just happen to be perfectly suited for solar power — they're large open spaces that often get lots of sunlight.
The golf course that will be turned into a 23 MW solar farm.
Kyocera's first project, now under construction, is a 23 megawatt solar plant on a golf course in Kyoto prefecture. When it goes live in 2017, the plant will produce enough power for about 8,100 households.
The company is also developing a 92 megawatt solar plant — generating enough energy for over 30,000 households — on an abandoned golf course in Kagoshima prefecture. No word on when that project will go live.
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