Ukraine has launched a new solar electric farm which is located 300 feet from the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plants that suffered a meltdown in 1986 killing thousands of people while spreading radiation across Russia and Europe.
The Solar Power Park which is worth over 1 million euro, and one-megawatt plant is expected to give the scene of the world worst disaster a new lease of life.
Speaking on the launch Yevgen Varyagin, the head of Solar Chernobyl, a Ukrainian-German company behind the project said; “Today we are connecting the station to the power system of Ukraine. “The facility is installed across an area of 1.6 hectares (4 acres); it can power a medium-sized village or about 2,000 households.” He added
Already, there are plans to produce over 100 megawatts of electricity at the site which can no longer be used for farming due to contamination caused by radiation hitting Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
Following the disaster, the Soviet Union evacuated thousands of people, and the vast territory which is over 2000 square kilometre wide has remained unoccupied since that time ending industrial activity in the area.
However, the new Solar Power Park will give new life to the contaminated site and also help the Ukrainian government diversify its power sources since Ukraine has stopped the importation of natural gas from Russia in the last few years.
Recently, the Ukrainian government added renewable energy as one of its energy sources with hundreds of megawatts of winds and solar powers bought in 2018. The government has also offered lands at a low price to solar farm investors willing to invest in the project.
Solar Chernobyl began operation on October 5th 2018; it has a capacity of 1 megawatt and roughly 2000 household.