Floating solar

A UK-based research team has calculated the global potential of deploying floating solar arrays on almost 68,000 lakes and reservoirs. It found some countries could generate the majority of their electricity needs from floating solar panels, while five could meet all their electricity demand.

Romanian energy company TMK Hydroenergy Power has switched on the country’s first floating solar project. The facility, located on a pond in Caras Severin county, is connected to a hydropower plant.

Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has been heating up in Germany but increased competition and high interest rates are affecting renewables project values. Baris Serifsoy, partner at GreenCap Partners, examines the investment landscape in one of the world’s most developed PV markets.

To assess renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, considering the limited supply of input materials, researchers from Shenzhen University established novel hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models that include a circular economy principles, waste potential and life cycle assessment (LCA).

The African Development Bank is seeking expressions of interest from consultants to carry out a feasibility study for a floating solar project at a dam in southern Zambia. The deadline for applications is June 15.

The Israeli authorities have proposed a plan to deploy 250 MW of floating solar and agrivoltaics through four PV plants in the Negev Desert near Ramon Airport.

Global solar demand will continue to grow in 2024, with module demand likely to reach 492 GW to 538 GW. Amy Fang, a senior analyst at InfoLink, looks at module demand and supply chain inventories in a market still affected by oversupply.

A research group in China has tested how membrane-based floating PV platforms can operate in offgrid scenarios. Their analysis showed that, especially with high wave frequencies, this kind of floating PV installation may suffer from the floater bending stiffness, which could limit both in-plane and out-of-plane motion amplitude.

SolarDuck and Tokyu Land have installed a floating solar demonstration unit in Japan. This project is billed as the nation’s first offshore floating solar power plant on the surface of the ocean and will be used to power electric vehicles and boats.

A new report prepared under the Indo-German Technical Cooperation on Innovative Solar provides a comprehensive overview of floating solar potential in India. It also provides projections for installations from 2024 to 2040.