Floating Solar Panels

Subject : Economy

Section: Infrastructure

Concept :

In nearly a dozen countries around the world, floating solar farms are providing a welcome alternative to ground-mounted modules, with the potential to significantly boost clean power as the world races to cut carbon emissions.
Massive solar farms can now be found atop bodies of water in China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Portugal, Singapore and Switzerland.

Floatovoltaics:

Floating solar or floating photovoltaics (FPV), sometimes called floatovoltaics, panels mounted on a structure that float on a body of water, typically a reseris solar voir or a lake.
Like land-based systems, floating solar panels generate electricity from the sun’s rays.
But the bodies of water that these farms rest on also help to cool the panels, allowing them to be 15% more efficient than terrestrial solar, per an estimate from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.
The first floating photovoltaic system was built in Japan in 2007. Currently, the world’s largest floating solar farm is in Shandong, China.

Structure of the Floating Solar Plants

It has a network of floating solar panels, or photovoltaics / floatovoltaics, that are mounted on a structure, to float it on the surface of a water body.
It often has a floating system or pontoon, a mooring structure to prevent panels from moving freely in water and to keep it near the shore,
The photovoltaic system generates electricity using thermal energy, and an underwater cable to transfer the generated power to a substation.
The floaters, on which solar modules are placed, are manufactured with high-density polyethylene (HDP) material.

Floating solar plants- significance:

Floating solar plants are considered an alternate option to tackle land availability issues. The concept involves setting up solar panels on floats placed on dams, lakes and similar water bodies.
Floating solar makes intuitive sense in geographies with high land costs and poor availability.
As water constraints increase around the world, floating solar might also help preserve supply.
The panels can limit evaporation from the reservoirs and lakes on which they sit. Early indications suggest that the structures might decrease the chances that harmful algae blooms will develop on bodies of water.

Challenges:

Cost: Despite being land neutral, the cost of the floating systems including anchoring, installation, maintenance and transmission renders the overall cost of the floating solar systems are much higher than the land based systems at this initial stage of development.
Technical issues: Besides the two major issues of corrosion and instability, other issues like the long term impact of moist environment on modules, cables, safe transmission of power through the floats to the nearest feeder point, the environmental impact on the water body and the marine life etc needs to be addressed and – make the system cost effective.