The photo is sourced from solarisfloat.com
The solution was tested on lake Oostvoornse Meer, the western Netherlands, where Solaris Float commissioned a 50.7 kW floating plant in 2020, consisting of 130 PV modules on a single-axis tracker. The plant looks like an island anchored and cabled to the bottom. The floating island is equipped with the motors using only 0.5% of the generated electricity and rotating the island clockwise during the daytime and in the opposite direction at night.
The company is going to supply two new types of solar islands in the future: the first one, Protevs+, will consist of 180 dual-axis tracking models with a total diameter of 38 metres and the area of 1,444 square metres; the island’s total power will reach 73 kW. The second island, Protevs Single360, will consist of 360 modules with a fixed 10 degree tilt and a total power of 147 kW. Both solutions are scalable: the consumer can combine seven “islands” into a solar farm able to generate 2 GWh of electricity per year, which is comparable to eight hours of energy consumption in Luxembourg.
Ease of cooling is one of the main advantages of floating solar power plants (SPP), Hesan Ziar, a professor at the Delft University of Technology, told Global Energy. “The main cooling mechanism for solar panels is convection, and the air flows above water tend to be cold, which keeps the temperature of the panels low, thereby increasing their efficiency and, as a result, energy production,” the expert notes.
Another advantage of floating solar power plants is the radiation balance. “The albedo of water, as well as the albedo of solar panels, is quite low. When we say albedo, we mean the ratio of the amount of radiation reflected from the surface to the amount absorbed. When solar panels are placed on the ground (and the albedo of the ground is high enough), the total albedo of this area changes in the direction of reducing the amount of radiation reflected by the ground. However, when installing the solar stations on water, this does not happen as the level of the water albedo and the albedo of the panels is low – approximately 5%. This is called the radiation balance,” emphasised Professor H. Ziar.
