Environmental and technical impacts of floating photovoltaic plants (FPVs) as an emerging clean energy technology

Abstract

Floating photovoltaic plants (FPVs) are emerging as a new modality of photovoltaic system application. FPVs present several benefits in comparison with ground-mounted systems and could have major and lasting positive environmental and technical impacts globally, which is the focus of this paper. Floating solar technology does not occupy habitable and productive areas and can be deployed in brownfields and degraded environments, that helps reducing land-use conflicts. Saving water through mitigating evaporation and improving water security in water-scarce regions combined with their flexibility for deployment on different water bodies including drinking water reservoirs are of other advantages of FPVs. They also have higher efficiency than ground-mounted PV solar and are compatible with the existing hydropower infrastructures, which supports diversifying the energy supply and its resilience. Despite the notable growth of floating photovoltaics on an international scale, lack of supporting policies and development roadmaps by the governments could hinder FPVs’ sustainable growth. Long-term reliability of the floating structures is also of the existing concerns that if not answered could limit the expansion of this emerging technology.