FLOATING SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC

Abstract

Floating photovoltaic (FPV) is the recent addition to the generation of electricity from solar energy after ground-mounted and rooftop installations. In the last few years, the capacity of floating PV systems has grown rapidly, especially in Asian countries like China, India, South Korea, and Japan. The present global capacity of floating PV systems stands at 2.6 GWp and is expected to grow by 20% annually until 2025. India has become a significant player in the FPV installations, with multiple large FPV projects of more than 100 MWp under construction, developed mainly by the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC). With a large water surface area, India has a potential of 280 GWp. India is targeting 450 GWp of renewable energy by 2030 and 100 GWp of solar power by 2022. Floating photovoltaics can play a significant role in this. There are many advantages of a floating PV system. The advantages include higher efficiency, water-saving due to reduction in evaporation, reduction in losses due to shading of solar panels, etc. But because this technology is still new, very little information is available regarding areas like environmental and social impact, the impact of water on FPV system components, etc. This report focused on the performance of two existing floating photovoltaic plants, a 25 MWp plant in Simhadri, Andhra Pradesh, and an 880 kWp plant in Kawas, Gujarat, in terms of electricity generation and water saving due to reduction in evaporation. This report will also focus on the environmental and social impact of the two floating photovoltaic plants. The FPV plant in Simhadri station generated a total energy of 4.14 MU during its first 46 days of operation whereas the FPV plant installed in Kawas generated a total of 2.30 MU of energy during its two years of operation (i.e., 2020 and 2021). The maximum CUF observed for the Simhadri FPV plant was 23.37% on 8th Nov 2021, whereas that of the Kawas FPV plant was 22.83% on Mar 2020. The maximum PR observed for the FPV plant in Kawas was 94% in Jan 2020. FPV plants are found to have a higher power density than traditional ground-mounted solar power plants. The Kawas FPV plant has 114.45 MWP/km2 of power density which is 63.5% higher than the power density of ground-mounted solar PV plants, i.e., 70 MWP/km2. The Simhadri FPV plant has 82.37 MWp/km2 power density which is roughly 18% higher than the ground-mounted solar PV plants. The data collected from the two FPV plants are analysed. The total annual savings of water are found to be 497,677 m3 (45% coverage area) and 17,923 m3 (6.53% of coverage area) for the FPV plant in Simhadri and Kawas respectively. This amount of water saved is about 34% of total reservoir water for Simhadri and 5% of total reservoir water for Kawas. Being a renewable energy source generating power from the FPV system also reduces the net carbon emission. The total lifetime reduction in carbon emission is also calculated for the two FPV plants which is found to be 557.35 thousand tons and 25.35 thousand tons of CO2 for the FPV plants in Simhadri and Kawas respectively. The specific CO2 reduction from the FPV plant in Simhadri and Kawas was found to be 22.29 thousand tons/MWp and 28.81 thousand tons/MWp respectively.