Floating Solar Photovoltaic (FSPV) Systems: ...

Floating Solar Photovoltaic (FSPV) Systems: Current Trends, Advancements, and Challenges

Author Name : Rajshree Kokate, Bindi Thakkar

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56025/IJARESM.2025.1305253114

ABSTRACT The growing energy demand in the current era has driven the need to adopt renewable energy sources. Among these, solar energy stands out as a promising solution to meet the rising energy requirements. This paper presents a review of existing floating solar power plants around the world, focusing on their capacity. Floating solar plants offer the advantage of conserving land typically required for solar installations.Traditional land-based solar projects often face challenges such as limited land availability, the need for land development and acquisition, substation capacity constraints, power evacuation issues, and delays in obtaining project clearances. These factors can hinder the timely execution of solar projects.Government-identified locations for solar development, based on solar radiation data, are often in hot and arid regions. While these areas receive high levels of solar radiation, the actual energy yield is reduced due to the overheating of solar panels and elevated surface temperatures of the solar cells.To address these issues, an innovative solution has emerged: installing solar panels over water bodies such as canals, lakes, reservoirs, and dam backwaters, which are typically government-owned. This paper presents an in-depth overview of floating solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants implemented across the globe.It highlights the potential of floating solar panels for power generation and minimizing water evaporation.