Advantages

Some Advantages of Floating Solar

Because of the vast and rapidly growing population on our planet, the demand for electricity will continue to rise. Water covers almost three quarters or the earths surface. Huge amounts of water area are being wasted or drying up, this is caused by climate change and increased global warming.

The advantages of floating solar farms situated on water can be huge. They reduce the use of land for electricity generation which is often used for better purposes and can be extremely expensive. As well as this, floating solar panels can transform what were once wastewater bodies into huge generators of revenue.

No Use of Land – Eliminating Land Costs

One of the largest advantages of floating solar is the fact that no expensive land is required. Land in certain areas throughout most of the countries in the world is becoming rarer to obtain and more precious as the population grows. Our Floating Solar Farms help to free up land for other uses, especially in countries which have highly populated towns and cities, or a shortage of agricultural land.

The significant savings on land costs and availability are one of the most important factors for floating solar and why it is gaining traction at a large rate, especially in developing countries. What were once wastewater bodies are now being utilised for floating solar, making disused areas potentially large generators of revenue.

Natural Cleaning – Lower Costs

Most on-land solar panel power plants require regular cleaning which can cause cost issues. Solar panel systems often cover huge areas meaning cleaning and maintenance can be a daunting task, which in turn makes costs of cleaning quite high. Solar plants which aren’t cleaned and maintained properly will generate much lower amounts of power, often rendering them insufficient.

Many specialist forms throughout the world specialise solely in cleaning solar panels, this is largely apparent in countries with cheaper labour such as India. Another one of the huge advantages of floating solar, is that they are naturally cleaned by the surroundings being in water, this means little to no cleaning costs whatsoever.

More Efficient Then Land Based Solar Farms

Solar panels, on average convert around 16-20% of solar energy into usable electricity. The advantage of floating solar on water is that it benefits from diffuse irradiation which comes from reflections on the surface. Solar panel efficiency is also reduced when exposed to high temperatures.

The cooling effect of the surrounding water means that floating solar farms offer better performance. These important advantage work together to improve the solar panels efficiency. Some water based solar farms have reported over 10% more efficiency when compared to land based solar panel systems.

Conserving Water

When solar panels are floated on the water, they regularly check on algae growth and also reduce evaporation, this means that they are very supportive of the environment. Our floating solar farms are tremendously eco-friendly, minimising the risk of solar cell performance atrophy, as well as dramatically reducing water evaporation from all types of water bodies.

Due to global warming, excessive evaporation is causing us to lose water more quickly, making water an increasingly scarce resource throughout the world. Research has shown that just 1 square metre of water surface that is covered by solar panels could potentially save over 1,000 litres of water being wasted each year.

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