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Marine Photovoltaics – An IoT-Integrated Approach to Enhance Efficiency
Published in Rupendra Kumar Pachauri, Jitendra Kumar Pandey, Abhishek Sharma, Om Prakash Nautiyal, Mangey Ram, Applied Soft Computing and Embedded System Applications in Solar Energy, 2021
R. Raajiv Menon, Jitendra Kumar Pandey, R. Vijaya Kumar
Though solar energy has been widely accepted as a cleaner energy source across the world, it has its own drawbacks, including massive land occupancy rate to match to the same energy equivalence produced by a nuclear or fossil fuel-dependent source. Second is the need for an efficient energy storage setup so as to cater during dark hours and seasonal weather. In order to tackle the land occupancy, floating solar farms have achieved much needed success; however, unlike any other renewable energy source, they require a dependable energy storage setup for smooth functioning. A variety of floating solar farms (Choi, 2014; S. H. Kim, Yoon, & Choi, 2017; S. M. Kim, Oh, & Park, 2019; Nebey, Taye, & Workineh, 2020) have swung into action for energy generation, viz., fixed floating solar farms, track-enabled floating solar farms, and submerged floating farms, depending on the regional conditions. The major advantages levied by these floating farms include Decluttering of land occupancy – can be installed over any water surface and does not conflict with agricultural or any prospective land masses.Prevention of evaporative loss from water bodies – due to larger area being covered. The evaporative losses during hot weather is greatly reduced by the presence of these floating farms.The submerged floating solar farms reduces the requirement of cooling systems and due to the presence of water body and has shown a higher efficiency rate.The cost of installation and dismantling of these floating farms is less and the processes are swift, efficient, and reversible as compared to the installations on land.Due to the greater flexibility in movement provided by the floatation buoys, these can be maneuvered to increase the incident angle and obviate the requirement of complex tracking systems.Floating solar farms offshore can be coupled with other renewable energy systems, viz., wind, wave, and ocean, to form complex hybrid renewable sources that can be further coupled to shore energy storage facility.
Design of floating solar PV system for typical household on Debre Mariam Island
Published in Cogent Engineering, 2020
Biniyam Zemene Taye, Abraham Hizkiel Nebey, Tewodros Gera Workineh
Solar PV performance is relying on weather conditions, operation parameters like temperature and wind speed (Kumar et al., 2020; Kumar, 2019). Efficiency of solar cells reduces with high temperature, since the solar energy captured by cell is not converted to electrical energy. Ethiopia has lots of lakes and human-made irrigational dams in different parts of the country. These, water bodies can be alternatives to install solar PV to the scarcest land and decrease impact of temperature on solar PV. Therefore, using water bodies for solar power generation increases efficiency of solar cell and save the land. Electric power generation with floating solar PV system is in excess of land installation. This is due, the cooling effect of the water surface. In addition to generation efficiency, the system provides environmental benefits such as reducing water evaporation, improve quality of water and reduces the growth of algae by shading the water from sun (Ramadhan & Naseeb, 2011). Floating solar PV plants are an emerging form of PV system that floats on the surface of water bodies. Land solar PV installation increases the risk of PV module efficiency drops.
Floating solar plants – Exploring a new dimension of energy generation: A case study
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2021
Dipanjan Ghose, Sudeep Pradhan
Floating solar plants have recently started gaining popularity amidst both governments and investors as it brings the much-concerned land acquisition trouble that comes with the installation of new solar plants to a permanent culmination. As the name suggests, floating solar plants are referred to a solar power installation that stays afloat on a water body, generally a reservoir or a lake. Although this form of solar power utilization is deemed to cost about 20–25% higher than traditional land-based solar plants, its numerous advantages have made it climb up the popularity ladder in recent years [Article: Floating Solar].
Mathematical model validation of floating PV parks impact on the growth of green algae using experimental chamber
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2023
Since 2011, experimental floating solar power systems have been used around the world, in which PV arrays are mounted floating on water as natural lakes or artificial reservoirs for a variety of purposes (Galdino and de Almeida Olivieri 2017). The deployment of floating solar plants has exploded in recent years, increasing from 0.01 GW in 2014 to 1.1 GW in 2018, adding more than 0.5 GW last year alone. However, the total solar capacity installed by the end of the year exceeded 500 GW (Haas et al. 2008). In terms of installation, various methods have been adopted for structure, mooring, modules, and cables. Pontoon structures are made up of high-density polyethylene (Oliveira-Pinto and Stokkermans 2020) and reinforced fiberglass materials (Sahu, Yadav, and Sudhakar 2016). Along with that galvanized steel structures, anti-corrosive materials are also used for floating photovoltaic structures (Rosa-Clot 2020). Following the older approach, steel ropes are used for the mooring purpose of the whole photovoltaic floating power plant (Sharma, Muni, and Sen 2021). Due to corrosion and flexibility issues, nylon ropes are used that offer flexibility and easy movement options to cater the problems caused by strong winds and gusts (Liu et al. 2018). Different types of photovoltaic panels are used in floating power plants, earlier studies show that monocrystalline photovoltaic panels have not shown promising results due to harsh marine environments (Alrashidi et al. 2020), while advanced materials like CdTe or CIGS have shown impactful outcomes in terms of power output and adoption of the salty environment (Ghosh et al. 2020). Several studies are in a phase of experimentation to use third-generation modules that includes carbon perovskite in the floating photovoltaic power plant (Bhandari et al. 2022).