One Of World’s Largest Floating Solar PV Power Projects Completed In Singapore
I recall when floating solar PV power plants popped onto the scene at some point in the past decade. On the one hand, the idea was so funny and fanciful that it seemed unrealistic. On the other hand, there appeared to be a lot of benefits to the approach — cooler surfaces (which help with solar panel efficiency, approx. 5–15%), fairly simple installation, no need to compete with other sectors for land use, no concern of shade, large and predictable spaces. The latter hand has indeed been winning out, as the floating solar PV market has been growing larger and larger.
The latest news of a large floating solar PV power project comes out of Singapore, a place that knows the challenges of limited land extremely well. The city-state, home to about 6 million people, launched one of the largest floating solar power plants in the world this week. The project will reportedly cover an area equal to 45 football fields! More specifically, but much harder for me to visualize without the previous comparison, the area covered is 45 hectares (111.2 acres). In total, there are 45,000 solar panels spread across the water. The purpose of this solar power plant floating over some good old H2O? Powering Singapore’s 5 water treatment plants, ironically.
Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm. Image courtesy of Sembcorp Industries Ltd. View Terms of Use.
That’s not where the fun of new tech used for good ends. Facility operators will use drones to monitor the PV facility. The solar panels are expected to last 25 years, but I would not be surprised to see them go much longer, especially with effective, smart maintenance.
The floating solar power plant is named Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm and is located on the Tengeh Reservoir. The project, built by Sembcorp Floating Solar Singapore, a subsidiary of Sembcorp Industries, offers 60 megawatts (MW) of power capacity. A short video of progress to date was published a couple of days ago at the link above. As cool as the concept of floating solar PV power plants is, and as cool as pictures of a large project are, I don’t think the concept or a few pictures compare to watching a video of a large project (even one that’s just 55 seconds long), so I do recommend clicking that link above and watching the production from The Straits Times/Singapore Press Holdings Limited. (No, we don’t have any association with them or get rewarded if you do. I just think the video is super cool.)
Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm. Image courtesy of Sembcorp Industries Ltd. View Terms of Use.
For those concerned about the aquatic life under the innovative power plant, have no fear — extensive environmental analyses were conducted, the project is designed to allow adequate sunlight to go through to the plants and animals underneath, and this type of project has been shown to assimilate well with fish, mermaids, and other sea creatures.
Singapore has been sold on floating solar power. Aside from this large project, the city-state has 4 other floating solar projects under construction. I expect more to be announced in the future as well. Overall, Singapore is aiming to quadruple its solar power use by 2025, and let’s be honest, it’s not flush with deserts or underutilized fields — but it is surrounded by a fair bit of water.
Solar power is growing across the world at a fairly fast clip. However, as with almost all things, there are limitations. There are limitations with resources, trained workers, cash money, and time. Therefore, there is always a question of how best to spend money, where to spend it, and what to do after you’ve spent it. How and where should one — whether a person, company, or city-state — invest in solar power to maximize the result?
Clearly, Singapore has decided that floating solar PV projects make a lot of sense for its needs and resources. For anyone else still weighing options. Or, for that matter, for anyone looking to maximize the output from a solar power project already in the ground, I recommend checking out an upcoming solar webinar we’re hosting. Along with HST and a couple of others, we will be exploring how solar project developers can support a larger pipeline of high-quality utility-scale solar projects with the same amount of time and people. We will also be looking at what can maximize project attraction for potential customers. If this sounds interesting to you, you can register for the webinar (it’s free) here.
Featured image courtesy of Sembcorp Industries Ltd. View Terms of Use.
HAWESVILLE, KY – May 10
Plant workers drive along an aluminum potline at Century Aluminum Company’s Hawesville plant in Hawesville, Ky. on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Photo by Luke Sharrett /For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Aluminum
The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Sweeping tariffs on imported aluminum imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump are succeeding in reshaping global trade flows and inflating costs for American consumers, but are falling short of their primary goal: to revive domestic aluminum production.
Instead, rising costs, particularly skyrocketing electricity prices in the U.S. relative to global competitors, are leading to smelter closures rather than restarts.
The impact of aluminum tariffs at 25% is starkly visible in the physical aluminum market. While benchmark aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange provide a global reference, the actual cost of acquiring the metal involves regional delivery premiums.
This premium now largely reflects the tariff cost itself.
In stark contrast, European premiums were noted by JPMorgan analysts as being over 30% lower year-to-date, creating a significant divergence driven directly by U.S. trade policy.
This cost will ultimately be borne by downstream users, according to Trond Olaf Christophersen, the chief financial officer of Norway-based Hydro, one of the world’s largest aluminum producers. The company was formerly known as Norsk Hydro.
“It’s very likely that this will end up as higher prices for U.S. consumers,” Christophersen told CNBC, noting the tariff cost is a “pass-through.” Shares of Hydro have collapsed by around 17% since tariffs were imposed.
The downstream impact of the tariffs is already being felt by Thule Group, a Hydro customer that makes cargo boxes fitted atop cars. The company said it’ll raise prices by about 10% even though it manufactures the majority of the goods sold in the U.S locally, as prices of raw materials, such as steel and aluminum, have shot up.
But while tariffs are effectively leading to prices rise in the U.S., they haven’t spurred a revival in domestic smelting, the energy-intensive process of producing primary aluminum.
The primary barrier remains the lack of access to competitively priced, long-term power, according to the industry.
“Energy costs are a significant factor in the overall production cost of a smelter,” said Ami Shivkar, principal analyst of aluminum markets at analytics firm Wood Mackenzie. “High energy costs plague the US aluminium industry, forcing cutbacks and closures.”
“Canadian, Norwegian, and Middle Eastern aluminium smelters typically secure long-term energy contracts or operate captive power generation facilities. US smelter capacity, however, largely relies on short-term power contracts, placing it at a disadvantage,” Shivkar added, noting that energy costs for U.S. aluminum smelters were about $550 per tonne compared to $290 per tonne for Canadian smelters.
Recent events involving major U.S. producers underscore this power vulnerability.
In March 2023, Alcoa Corp announced the permanent closure of its 279,000 metric ton Intalco smelter, which had been idle since 2020. Alcoa said that the facility “cannot be competitive for the long-term,” partly because it “lacks access to competitively priced power.”
Similarly, in June 2022, Century Aluminum, the largest U.S. primary aluminum producer, was forced to temporarily idle its massive Hawesville, Kentucky smelter – North America’s largest producer of military-grade aluminum – citing a “direct result of skyrocketing energy costs.”
Century stated the power cost required to run the facility had “more than tripled the historical average in a very short period,” necessitating a curtailment expected to last nine to twelve months until prices normalized.
The industry has also not had a respite as demand for electricity from non-industrial sources has risen in recent years.
Hydro’s Christophersen pointed to the artificial intelligence boom and the proliferation of data centers as new competitors for power. He suggested that new energy production capacity in the U.S., from nuclear, wind or solar, is being rapidly consumed by the tech sector.
“The tech sector, they have a much higher ability to pay than the aluminium industry,” he said, noting the high double-digit margins of the tech sector compared to the often low single-digit margins at aluminum producers. Hydro reported an 8.3% profit margin in the first quarter of 2025, an increase from the 3.5% it reported for the previous quarter, according to Factset data.
“Our view, and for us to build a smelter [in the U.S.], we would need cheap power. We don’t see the possibility in the current market to get that,” the CFO added. “The lack of competitive power is the reason why we don’t think that would be interesting for us.”
While failing to ignite domestic primary production, the tariffs are undeniably causing what Christophersen termed a “reshuffling of trade flows.”
When U.S. market access becomes more costly or restricted, metal flows to other destinations.
Christophersen described a brief period when exceptionally high U.S. tariffs on Canadian aluminum — 25% additional tariffs on top of the aluminum-specific tariffs — made exporting to Europe temporarily more attractive for Canadian producers. Consequently, more European metals would have made their way into the U.S. market to make up for the demand gap vacated by Canadian aluminum.
The price impact has even extended to domestic scrap metal prices, which have adjusted upwards in line with the tariff-inflated Midwest premium.
Hydro, also the world’s largest aluminum extruder, utilizes both domestic scrap and imported Canadian primary metal in its U.S. operations. The company makes products such as window frames and facades in the country through extrusion, which is the process of pushing aluminum through a die to create a specific shape.
“We are buying U.S. scrap [aluminium]. A local raw material. But still, the scrap prices now include, indirectly, the tariff cost,” Christophersen explained. “We pay the tariff cost in reality, because the scrap price adjusts to the Midwest premium.”
“We are paying the tariff cost, but we quickly pass it on, so it’s exactly the same [for us],” he added.
RBC Capital Markets analysts confirmed this pass-through mechanism for Hydro’s extrusions business, saying “typically higher LME prices and premiums will be passed onto the customer.”
This pass-through has occurred amid broader market headwinds, particularly downstream among Hydro’s customers.
RBC highlighted the “weak spot remains the extrusion divisions” in Hydro’s recent results and noted a guidance downgrade, reflecting sluggish demand in sectors like building and construction.
— CNBC’s Greg Kennedy contributed reporting.
Danish energy giant Ørsted has canceled plans for the Hornsea 4 offshore wind farm, dealing a major blow to the UK’s renewable energy ambitions.
Hornsea 4, at a massive 2.4 gigawatts (GW), would have become one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, generating enough clean electricity to power over 1 million UK homes. But Ørsted announced that it’s abandoning the project “in its current form.”
“The adverse macroeconomic developments, continued supply chain challenges, and increased execution, market, and operational risks have eroded the value creation,” said Rasmus Errboe, group president and CEO of Ørsted.
Reuters reported that Ørsted’s cancellation of Hornsea 4 would result in a projected loss of up to 5.5 billion Danish crowns ($837.85 million) in breakaway fees and asset write-downs. The company’s market value has declined by 80% since its peak in 2021.
The cancellation highlights significant challenges currently facing offshore wind development in Europe, particularly in the UK. The combination of higher material costs, inflation, and global financial instability has made large-scale renewable projects increasingly difficult to finance and complete.
Ørsted’s decision is a significant setback to the UK’s energy transition goals. The UK currently has around 15 GW of offshore wind, and Hornsea 4’s size would have provided almost 7% of the additional capacity needed for the UK’s 50 GW by 2030 target, according to The Times. Losing this immense project off the Yorkshire coast could hamper the UK’s pace of reducing dependency on fossil fuels, especially amid volatile global energy markets.
The UK government reiterated its commitment to renewable energy, promising to work closely with industry leaders to overcome financial and logistical hurdles. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told reporters in Norway that the UK is “still committed to working with Orsted to seek to make Hornsea 4 happen by 2030.”
Ørsted says it remains committed to its other UK-based projects, including the Hornsea 3 wind farm, which is expected to generate around 2.9 GW once completed at the end of 2027. Despite the challenges, the company emphasized its ongoing commitment to the British renewable market, pointing to the critical need for policy support and economic stability to ensure future developments.
Yet, the cancellation of Hornsea 4 demonstrates that even flagship renewable projects are vulnerable in the face of economic pressures and global uncertainties, which have been heightened under the Trump administration in the US.
Read more: The world’s single-largest wind farm gets the green light
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The Tesla Roadster appears to be quietly disappearing after years of delay. is it ever going to be made?
I may have jinxed it with Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, which suggests any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with “no.”
The prototype for the next-generation Tesla Roadster was first unveiled in 2017, and it was supposed to come into production in 2020, but it has been delayed every year since then.
It was supposed to get 620 miles (1,000 km) of range and accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds.
It has become a sort of running joke, and there are doubts that it will ever come to market despite Tesla’s promise of dozens of free new Roadsters to Tesla owners who participated in its referral program years ago.
Tesla uses the promise of free Roadsters to help generate billions of dollars worth of sales, which Tesla owners delivered, but the automaker never delivered on its part of the agreement.
Furthermore, many people placed deposits ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 to reserve the vehicle, which was supposed to hit the market 5 years ago.
The official timelines from Tesla are pretty useless at this point since they haven’t stuck to any of them, but the latest official one dates back to July 2024 when CEO Elon Musk said this:
“With respect to Roadster, we’ve completed most of the engineering. And I think there’s still some upgrades we want to make to it, but we expect to be in production with Roadster next year. It will be something special.”
He said that Tesla had completed “most of the engineering”, but he initially said the engineering would be done in 2021 and that was already 3 years after the prototype was unveiled and a year after it was supposed to be in production:
Musk commented on the Roadster again in October 2024, but he didn’t reiterate the 2025 timeline. Instead, he called the new Roadster “the cherry on the icing on the cake.”
Tesla’s leadership has been virtually silent about the new Roadster since. Two Tesla executives even had to be reminded about the Roadster by Jay Leno after they “forgot” about it when listing upcoming new Tesla vehicles with tri-motor powertrain.
There was one small update about the Roadster in Tesla’s financial results last month.
The automaker has a table of all its vehicle production, and the Roadster was updated from “in development” to “design development” in the table:
It’s not clear if that’s progress or Tesla is just rephrasing it. Either way, it is not “construction”, which makes it unlikely that the Roadster is going into production this year.
If ever…
Electrek’s Take
It looks like Tesla owes about 80 Tesla Roadsters for free to Tesla owners who referred purchases, and it owes significant discounts on hundreds of units.
It’s hard for me to believe that Tesla is not delivering the new Roadster because the vehicle program would start about $100 million in the red, but at this point, I have no idea. It very well might be the reason.
However, I think it’s more likely that Tesla is just terrible at bringing multiple vehicle programs to market simultaneously. Case in point: it launched a single new vehicle in the last five years.
At this point, I think it’s more likely that the Roadster will never happen. It will join other Tesla products like the Cybertruck Range Extender.
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