Floating Solar PV Panel

#Floating #Solar #Renewable_energy

Floating Solar …

Floating solar refers to a solar power production installation mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water, typically an artificial basin or a lake.

Two systems can be distinguished:

- FPV or Floating photovoltaic: uses photovoltaic panels mounted on the platform.

- Floating CSP or Floating concentrated solar power: uses mirrors that redirect the solar power to a tower.

Vari Pontoons offers floating solar panel solutions. It is well aware of the growing need of clean energy and the encouragement and backing offered by governments of several Asian countries to adopt this floating solar technology.

Further, underutilized areas, such as dam reservoirs, can become highly value-adding power-generating stations. Floating systems many a time, also perform better than arrays built on land. Solar systems installed on water are normally cooler due to the natural process of evaporating water which causes them to operate more efficiently. In water reservoirs, floating solar panels can reduce evaporation, improve water quality, and serve as an energy source for pumping and irrigation.

According to a study by Korea Water Resources Corporation, a floating array could be 11% more productive than an equivalent land-based system.

An ever - growing demand for Floating Solar Panels is the buzz in Renewable Energy.

Floating solar technology is being accepted worldwide, thus creating major new opportunities to encourage people based worldwide to utilise solar energy, more so, in countries that are densely populated, thus resulting in a shortage of available land in addition to weak electricity grids. Governments of several countries where solar energy is freely available in plenty, are responding well to the idea of floating solar and this technology is fast catching up.

The use of floating solar – deployment of photovoltaic panels on the surface of bodies of water – has grown more than a hundred-fold in less than four years, from a worldwide installed capacity of 10 megawatts at the end of 2014 to 1.1 gigawatts by September 2018, according to the first market report on floating solar, produced by the World Bank Group and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). ( Reference: Worldbank.org )

At some large hydropower plants, providing a minimal percent of the reservoir with floating solar could close to double the capacity of the plant, potentially allowing water resources to be more strategically managed by utilizing the solar output during the day. Combining solar and hydropower can also be used to smooth out the variability of solar output.

In a number of countries, floating solar also allows power generation to be placed more closely to urban areas or other demand centres. And while up-front costs are slightly higher, the costs over time of floating solar are at par with traditional solar, because of floating solar’s higher energy yield – due to the cooling effect of water.

Asia is the epi-centre for this technology’s expansion, with large floating solar plants at either the tens or hundreds of megawatt scale being installed or planned in China, India and Southeast Asia.

Demand for floating solar technology is on the rise especially when worldwide, there is stress being laid on clean energy for a clean and green environment. The only point to be taken care of is that the best practices are adopted and their (floating solar) development minimizes any environmental impacts.

There are several reasons for this development:

1. No land occupancy: the main advantage of floating PV plants is that they do not take up any land, except the limited surfaces necessary for electric cabinet and grid connections. Their price is comparable with land based plants, but they provide a good way to avoid land consumption.

2. Installation and decommissioning: floating PV plants are more compact than land-based plants, their management is simpler and their construction and decommissioning straightforward. The main point is that no fixed structures exist like the foundations used for a land-based plant so their installation can be totally reversible.

3. Water saving and water quality: the partial coverage of basins can reduce the water evaporation. This result depends on climate conditions and on the percentage of the covered surface. In arid climates such as Australia this is an important advantage since about 80% of the evaporation of the covered surface is saved and this means more than 20,000 m3/year/ha. This is a very useful feature if the basin is used for irrigation purposes.

4. Cooling: the floating structure allows the implementation of a simple cooling system. Cooling mechanism is natural but can also be active by generating a water layer on the PV modules or using a submerged PV modules, the so called SP2 (Submerged Photovoltaic Solar Panel). In these cases the global PV modules efficiency rises thanks to the absence of thermal drift, with a gain in energy harvesting up to 8-10%.

5. Tracking: a large floating platform can be easily turned and can perform a vertical axis tracking: this can be done without wasting energy and without the need for a complex mechanical apparatus as in land-based PV plants. A floating PV plant equipped with a tracking system has a limited additional cost while the energy gain can range from 15 to 25%.

6. Storage opportunity: the presence of water naturally suggests using gravity energy storage mainly in the coupling with hydroelectric basins. However other possibilities has been explored and in particular CAES systems have been suggested.

7. Environment control: a parallel advantage is the containment of the algae bloom, a serious problem in industrialized countries. The partial coverage of the basins and the reduction of light on biological fouling just below the surface, together with active systems can solve this problem. This is only a part of the more general problem of managing a water basin generated by industrial activities or polluted by them. See for example the mining managing.

8. Efficiency improvement: Many studies claim that there is a significant improvement in efficiency putting solar panels over water. These studies are not conclusive and differ in their conclusion. The energy gain reported range from 5 to 15%.