A global study of freshwater coverage by floating photovoltaics

Nobre, Regina and Midauar Gondim Rocha, Sofia and Healing, Samuel and Ji, Qianfeng and Boulêtreau, Stéphanie and Armstrong, Alona and Cucherousset, Julien (2024) A global study of freshwater coverage by floating photovoltaics. Solar Energy, 267: 112244. ISSN 0038-092X

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Abstract

Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) deployments are accelerating worldwide and FPV coverage on water surface can strongly influence their ecological impacts. Yet, a global assessment of their characteristics is still lacking. We identified 643 FPV power plants constructed across the globe. We found that FPV power plants currently exist in 28 countries, predominantly concentrated in Asia. FPV coverage was highly variable between lakes, ranging from 0.004 % to 89.9 % of lake surface area. Overall, FPV coverage averaged 34.2 % (±22 SD, n = 494), varying significantly across continents. FPV coverage was significantly driven by lake size and morphological complexity, with smaller lakes and lakes with simplified morphology having higher FPV coverage. The high variability in FPV coverage worldwide suggests a high context-dependency of their ecological impacts that will likely be stronger in small lakes with higher FPV coverage.