A 70MW floating PV system at an irrigation lake in Vietnam. Image: Sungrow Floating
The best recommended practice on floating PV was announced to help decrease risks for developers and increase financier belief.
The RP aims to offer counseling for accelerating the exploitation, operation, and decommissioning of a floating PV system while raising awareness about how policymakers can support the technology’s development.
The project was released last year and 24 companies joined to develop and investigate all aspects about building float PV on inland and near-shore waters.
The practice concentrates on 5 points: site conditions assessment, energy yield forecast, mooring and anchoring systems, floating structures, permitting and environmental impact.
Set up floating PV capacity globally raised from just 10MW in 2015 to 2GW by last year. Asian markets like China have made significant progress and developed dozens of utility-scale projects, but the technology has not yet been accepted globally, partly because of bank capacity issues and lack of operations and maintenance data.
RP aims to address these challenges and provide insights into the technical complexity of building and operating on the water, especially in terms of electrical safety, anchoring and mooring issues, and operations and maintenance.
Floating solar is an untapped, fast-growing technology with huge potential. With collaboration from leading companies around the world, it provides critical reassurance to the likes of investors and governments as well as leaders from across the energy industries that we can transition faster to a clean energy future.
The publication of the initial RP is the first step towards full standardization and certification for the floating solar sector. Full standardization for FPV could take up to five years, depending on how industry players implement best practices. The companies involved in floating solar are really striving for quality and they want to improve their practice. So I believe the industry itself is going in the right direction.
