Hong Kong’s Ocean Park looks to treble solar power capacity by 2020

The commitment of Hong Kong theme park Ocean Park to reduce its carbon footprint and tackle climate change will see it treble its solar energy generation capacity by 2020.

The installation of a solar panel system that generates about 200 kilowatt-peak (kWp)/200,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually has seen the attraction in Hong Kong’s Southern District successfully reached its 10-year carbon reduction targets, set in 2012, four years ahead of schedule in the 2017/18 financial year.

Now it is to install a solar power system of about 460 kWp/460,000 kWh on the rooftop of its popular attraction Polar Adventure.

Set to reduce Ocean Park’s absolute carbon emissions by 10%, some of the power generated will be sold to HK Electric as part of a feed-in tariff scheme introduced by the Hong Kong Government in 2018 to encourage the use of renewable energy for domestic and commercial purposes.

Explaining the initiative, Ocean Park Chief Executive, Matthias Li Sing-chung advised “Ocean Park strives to achieve sustainable development. Through the park’s industry-leading carbon footprint reduction plan, we are committed to optimising energy efficiency of all facilities to achieve energy savings.

“The park will continue to reduce its carbon footprint through various initiatives and create a world-class, eco-friendly theme park experience.”

The new installation is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2019 and be completed by the end of 2020.

Images: Hong Kong’s Ocean Park has vowed to tackle climate change by trebling its solar energy generation capacity by 2020 (top) and the installation on the roof of Polar Adventure (below).