Floating solar plants are an old concept but are beginning to take momentum with China and Japan taking the lead. Also the Netherlands, land of dikes and water, is investigating to go large scale with three 100 MW floating solar plants. A single plant should be able to power 30 000 households, will be 200 acres big and consist of half a million solar panels.
Except for the esthetic aspect a lot of water surfaces have not much value. We can’t build on it and we can’t use it for farming.
Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org
Installation
The floating solar plants are mostly built on water reservoirs that aren’t used for either, such as abandoned mines or fresh water reservoirs. They don’t take surface away that can be used for agriculture. The plants are easily scalable and require no heavy equipment to build. The terrain is not an issue. No preparations need to be made to drain water or build maintenance roads.
Environment
The farms offer the advantage of reduced water evaporation, which means less loss of drinking water, and slower algae growth because the plant servers as a shield against sunlight It also seems bacteria growth is reduced due to reduced water temperature. This all affects the water treatment needed in a positive way on drinking reservoirs. There’s also an impact on the reservoirs edges because the farm reduces waves and thus erosion.
Source: The Daily Mail: Located in eastern China, the plant has a capacity of 40 megawatts of energy - enough to power over 15 000 homes
Efficiency
The efficiency of solar cells goes down as the temperature goes up. It’s a bit of a shame since they work best in sunny conditions. The water has a very positive effect here. According to studies there is an efficiency improvement of 19% because of the cooling effect of the water on both panels and cables.
Challenges
The energy demand is quite predictable. Because solar energy can’t always be produced and fluctuates it has impact on how electricity is distributed. There are ideas to store renewable energy so it doesn’t get wasted and doesn’t impact the distribution too much. With water reservoirs one of the ideas is to pump water into the reservoir if there is an excess of energy and then let it empty through generators to convert the energy back. Another challenge is to secure the panels. Especially in windy regions such as Japan.
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