Typhoon Bavi strikes solar parks in China giving a new meaning to “distributed energy”
A Solar “farm” in the path of Typhoon Bavi. (From the video below).
By Jo Nova
The price of low intensity energy is large vulnerable infrastructure
Typhoon Bavi travelled right through a zone of multiple coastal solar parks in Zhejiang, China on July 12th. It’s difficult to confirm details, as there are few news reports and the CCP don’t seem to want to put out a press release. But we know Typhoon Bavi made landfall in Zhejiang in Eastern China near Taiwan, and Google satellite shots show quite a few large solar panel installations were right there in the water and on the tidal flats where the typhoon hit. These sitting ducks of glass had no protection.
Some hybrid solar “farms” double as fish farms too. The largest one, called the 550MW Taihan Fishing-Solar hybrid project has (or had) 1.4 million solar PV panels covering 4.7 square kilometers,. It was finished in December 2021. Another one, the Hengtai 550MW fishery and photovoltaic farm was only connected up on July 30 last year. It cost 1.46 billion yuan ($200m US) and covered 194 hectares. It was not even a year old before it faced it’s first Super Typhoon. It was a baby. Presumably all these “farms” would have been expected to last 25 years or so, not 1 to 3. Insurers must be hurting. Rates will rise.
And if the solar parks are rebuilt, they’ll need to be stronger, so construction costs will rise too. An expensive lesson.
https://joannenova.com.au/2026/07/typhoon-bavi-strikes-solar-parks-in-china-giving-a-new-meaning-to-distributed-energy/
