Floating photo voltaic panels might advance US vitality targets
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 15, 2025
Federal reservoirs have the potential to considerably contribute to assembly the nation’s photo voltaic vitality wants, in accordance with a latest research printed in Photo voltaic Power.
Geospatial scientists Evan Rosenlieb and Marie Rivers, together with Aaron Levine, a senior authorized and regulatory analyst on the U.S. Division of Power’s Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory (NREL), carried out the primary complete evaluation to quantify the vitality potential of floating photo voltaic panel initiatives on federally owned or regulated reservoirs. Their findings reveal that these reservoirs might assist floating photo voltaic panels able to producing as much as 1,476 terawatt hours of vitality yearly – sufficient to energy roughly 100 million houses.
“That is a technical potential,” Rosenlieb defined, clarifying that this determine represents the utmost vitality era attainable if each reservoir had been absolutely utilized for floating photo voltaic panels. “We all know we’re not going to have the ability to develop all of this. However even if you happen to might develop 10% of what we recognized, that will go a good distance.”
Though the research doesn’t but account for the potential impacts of human and wildlife actions on floating photo voltaic growth, the researchers plan to deal with these components in future work. This enhanced knowledge supplies vital insights that might streamline mission planning and help in evaluating how floating photo voltaic matches into the nation’s vitality technique.
Floating photo voltaic panels, or floating PV, provide a number of benefits. Along with producing electrical energy with out consuming land sources, they supply cooling and shading to water our bodies, lowering evaporation and conserving water provides. Nonetheless, large-scale installations stay absent within the U.S., with no single mission exceeding 10 megawatts.
Levine famous the challenges and alternatives: “We’ve not seen any large-scale installations, like at a big reservoir. In america, we do not have a single mission over 10 megawatts.”
Earlier makes an attempt to estimate the vitality potential of floating photo voltaic panels within the U.S. lacked the detailed evaluation of this research, which evaluates the suitability of reservoirs based mostly on components similar to water circumstances and infrastructure necessities. For example, reservoirs with frequent delivery visitors, excessive temperatures, or steeply sloping bottoms might pose challenges for floating photo voltaic installations. Nonetheless, some hydropower reservoirs might function glorious websites for hybrid vitality methods combining photo voltaic and hydropower, enhancing grid reliability and resilience.
The researchers additionally highlighted the potential of recent reservoirs created for pumped storage hydropower initiatives. These reservoirs, which are sometimes remoted from pure waterways, might function supreme areas for floating photo voltaic panels, as they don’t influence present ecosystems or human actions.
Future research will assess extra components, similar to proximity to transmission traces, site-specific growth prices, and regulatory issues. The researchers additionally plan to broaden their evaluation to incorporate smaller reservoirs, estuaries, and ocean websites.
Analysis Report:Floating photovoltaic technical potential: A novel geospatial approach on federally controlled reservoirs in the United States
Associated Hyperlinks
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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