A new study shows that covering 30% of 115,000 reservoirs with solar panels could produce more than twice the energy the entire US generates annually.
So how about laying a bunch of solar panels on reservoirs? Floating photovoltaic systems, also known as floatovoltaics, could be a powerful complement to the hydroelectric power already generated by a reservoirA new study by an international team of researchers shows just how useful wide-scale floatovoltaics could be. They calculate that covering 30 percent of the surface of 115,000 reservoirs globally could generate 9,434 terawatt hours of power a year.
Floatovoltaics work just like solar panels on land, only they’re … floating. Each one is a cluster or “island” of panels, built atop a buoyant mounting platform and anchored to the bottom of the water body by cables. Every other row of panels is a walkway for crews to do electrical maintenance or inspections.
The systems are of course built to resist rust, but so are terrestrial panels, which are exposed to rain. “The electrical system is really no different than a rooftop system or a ground mount system,” says Chris Bartle, director of sales and marketing at Ciel & Terre USA, which deploysaround the world. “We’ve taken essentially old technology from the marina world—docks and buoys and whatnot—and applied that to building a structure that an array of solar panels can be mounted to.
They have an added engineering challenge, though, in that a reservoir’s water level can change dramatically during storms or droughts. There may be strong currents, as well as winds. So while the system is anchored to the lake bottom, there must be slack in the anchoring lines. “It allows the island to move around with the nature of the wind and the waves and water level variation,” says Bartle.
These islands shade water that would otherwise be exposed to relentless sunlight; if implemented worldwide, the study found that all those panels would save enough water to supply 300 million people each year. The reservoir water, in turn, actually makes the floatovoltaics more efficient at harvesting the sun’s energy. It cools them—like a human, solar cells can overheat.
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