Floating solar

The bifacial panel has a power output of up to 485 W and an efficiency of up to 21%. It relies on a transparent backsheet and is encapsulated with polyolefin elastomer (POE).

The 50 kW modular PV system started operating at the end of November 2019. According to its developer, Dutch start-up Oceans of Energy, power production after 18 months of operations is in line with expectations. The installation had to withstand several storms and waves with a height of up to 10 meters.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said earlier this year that the city-state needs to “innovate and use technology” to overcome its resource scarcity problem. With one of the world’s largest floating PV arrays now in operation, it appears to be drifting in the right direction.

The new floating structures can be made of light, reinforced concrete or similar materials, and are claimed to withstand 6m high waves. They can be utilized with standard photovoltaic modules that are currently available on the market.

Around 500 open-pit lakes left behind as a legacy of Germany’s open-cast lignite mining industry could potentially host more than 50 GW of solar generation capacity. With that in mind, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is financing a three-year study into the technology’s revenue potential.

Montenegro’s power utility, EPCG, is planning to build the facility on a salt lake in the western part of the country. Some undisclosed Danish companies are interested in developing the project.

The project is expected to have a capacity of up to 50 MW and is set to be commissioned in 2023.

The 500 kW floating array was built with floating membranes supplied by Norwegian specialist Ocean Sun. The project is expected to continue its second implementation phase during the second half of 2021, when three more 500 kW floating units will be installed.

The floating plant will be deployed at the 20 MW Wushantou hydroelectric power dam operated by Taiwanese state-owned utility Taiwan Power Corp, in Tainan city.

European researchers have estimated the potential of floating PV deployment at Africa’s existing hydropower reservoirs which exceed 5 MW in size, by using satellite images and hydropower reservoir data. Under the most likely scenario presented in the study, utility scale floating solar may reach a capacity of more than 20 GW by using less than 1% of the water surface area at 108 hydropower plants spread across the continent, assuming a capex of €0.40/W.