Floating solar

Floating solar or floating photovoltaics (FPV), sometimes called floatovoltaics, are solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water, typically a reservoir or a lake such as drinking water reservoirs, quarry lakes, irrigation canals or remediation and tailing ponds.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The systems can have advantages over photovoltaics (PV) on land. Water surfaces may be less expensive than the cost of land, and there are fewer rules and regulations for structures built on bodies of water not used for recreation. Life cycle analysis indicates that foam-based FPV^[6] have some of the shortest energy payback times (1.3 years) and the lowest greenhouse gas emissions to energy ratio (11 kg CO₂ eq/MWh) in crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic technologies reported.^[7]

Floating arrays can achieve higher efficiencies than PV panels on land because water cools the panels. The panels can have a special coating to prevent rust or corrosion.^[8]

The market for this renewable energy technology has grown rapidly since 2016. The first 20 plants with capacities of a few dozen kWp were built between 2007 and 2013.^[9] Installed power grew from 3 GW in 2020, to 13 GW in 2022,^[10] surpassing a prediction of 10 GW by 2025.^[11] The World Bank estimated there are 6,600 large bodies of water suitable for floating solar, with a technical capacity of over 4,000 GW if 10% of their surfaces were covered with solar panels.^[10]

The costs for a floating system are about 10-20% higher than for ground-mounted systems.^[12][13][14] According to a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), this increase is primarily due to the need for anchoring systems to secure the panels on water, which contributes to making floating solar installations about 25% more expensive than those on land.^[15]