Floating Photovoltaics (FPV) or floating PV is a photovoltaic (PV) based energy generation approach on the water surface [1]. The floating PV market is a relative niche market as compared to its main and well-established rival, which is ground-mounted PV module installation. In this regard, it is estimated that the FPV capacity will reach 10 GW cumulatively around the globe by 2025 [2]. While, only in 2021 and after recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the ground-mounted PV module installation achieved an outstanding installation of 191 GW capacity and it has become closer to its first terawatt scale and it is expected to reach it by the middle of the next year.
China has been the leading country in both markets in recent years so that the share of China in FPV installed capacity was 73% (950 MW) as of the end of 2018 when the FPV market gained its first-gigawatt scale [3]. Since 2017 the floating PV plant with 150 MW capacity in Anhui province in China was the world’s largest FPV project for 4 years in a row. The project, which has spread across 13 separate islets on an area of 140 hectares, was completed in late 2018, with grid-connection, tests, and commissioning carried out this month at the project site in the Lianghuai mining subsidence area, Yongqiao District, Suzhou City [4].
The world’s largest floating PV project title has been given to another project in China after completion at the end of December 2021. The 320 MW floating PV plant in Shandong province has now grabbed this title. The Shandong floating PV plant was built in two phases with 200 MW and 120 MW capacities. The first phase is accompanied by 8 MWh of storage capacity and was completed in 2020, while the second phase came online at the end of December 2021. The world’s largest FPV project up to now would provide 550 GWh of electricity per year. This is equivalent to saving 168,000 tons of standard coal and reducing 453,000 tons of CO2 [5,6]. Floating PV projects is one of the newer trends of Solar Energy and there is a neck to neck comptetion for deploying largest floating PV projects.
Author: Hesam-Edin Hayati Soloot
References
[1] Floating Photovoltaics: A SWOT Analysis https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354690330_FLOATING_PHOTOVOLTAICS_A_SWOT_ANALYSIS
[2] SolarEdition, “10GW of New Floating Solar Capacity Will be Installed in the Next Five Years”.
[3] SolarEdition, “China’s Solution for Future of FPV is Hybrid FPV + Hydropower”.
[4] SolarEdition, “World’s largest floating solar plant connected in China”.[5] PV-Magazine, “World’s largest floating PV plant goes online in China”, Written by Emiliano Bellini.
[5] PV-Magazine, “World’s largest floating PV plant goes online in China”, Written by Emiliano Bellini.
[6] Pandaily, “Huaneng Power International Builds Floating Photovoltaic Power Station with World’s Largest Single Capacity”.
