Part of a completed solar project on an old golf course in the Miyazaki prefecture, Japan. Photo: Kyocera
Japanese firm Kyocera announced last Wednesday that it had begun work on a 23MW solar project located on an old golf course in Kyoto prefecture. By building solar farms on its abandoned golf courses, Japan is addressing two problems at once. First off, the country built too many golf courses during a real estate boom from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, and prices have been comparatively low ever since. Secondly, following the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan is aiming to double the amount of renewable energy by 2030 it uses to some 20% of the total mix.
The news about the Kyoto project comes barely a month after Kyocera announced a 92MW solar farm in Kagoshima prefecture, on a site that had been designated for a golf course 30 years ago but was later abandoned. Separately, Japanese firm Pacifico Energy and GE announced in December that they are teaming up to build a 42MW solar plant on a former golf course. Around the same time, developer Takara Leben and engineering firm Hitachi Zosen also announced that they will build a 15MW solar array on a former golf course.
The idea of converting abandoned golf courses to solar farms is starting to catch on in the U.S. too. Communities in several states, including New York, Florida, Utah, Kansas, and Minnesota, are considering such proposals. And if golf courses face declining customer interest and profit margins, then selling to solar developers could be a better alternative. It makes the most sense to install solar panels in dry parts of the country (such as drought-stricken California), replacing the costly need to water and maintain golf courses’ non-native green lawns. (Even some operational golf courses are contemplating smaller arrays of solar panels - mostly out of sight of golfers — for their own uses, like offsetting the costs of irrigation.)
However, Japan is pursuing this approach more vigorously than in the U.S. because it has far less land available for solar farms. Accordingly, it is pursuing other innovative strategies to use space ever-more efficiently, such as building solar farms on abandoned landfills, and even developing floating solar panels (which will be highlighted in this Friday’s feature.)
Construction of the solar farms will create jobs in the nearby communities, and increase municipal tax revenues. The solar-generated electricity will also offset tens of thousands of tons of CO2 emissions per year that otherwise would have come from fossil fuels. Japan is scoring well below par on this one.
