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Floating PV Systems On and Offshore

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A2: Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 September 2024 | Viewed by 5080

Special Issue Editors

Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Interests: system design, modelling and simulation of PV systems considering both floating and land-based PV systems; study about the feasibility of FPV systems considering the site-specific conditions; modelling the dynamic tilt and dynamic albedo for floating PV systems; solving the PV system optimizations for system design; shade-resilient PV system; mitigating the mismatch conditions for solar panels; agrivoltaic and BIPV systems
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Interests: integration of PV in society in particular in buildings (BIPV) and the (local) electricity grid; simulation and performance analysis of PV systems and modules, shading analyses and shad-resilience options, for land-based and water-based PV systems; forecasting of PV power with AI approaches and sky-imagers; market and footprint analysis of PV systems and circularity approaches
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The dominant candidates for massive renewable energy deployment, land-based PV and wind, are expected to meet at least half of the world’s electricity demand by 2040. However, to enable such an achievement, large areas are needed to harvest wind and solar energy. As 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, floating photovoltaics (FPV) has immense potential and is a particularly attractive solution for countries with high population density, nations that need their land to be assigned for other use cases such as agriculture, or small islands that need to have better energy security. Although FPV is a relatively new technology, it has gained a lot of attention recently. This new technology not only provides an alternative solution in areas where land is scarce, but it could be a good match for hybrid floating systems such as floating wind. The global deployment of FPV systems has increased considerably in recent years and is expected to grow by an average of 22% on a year-to-year basis until 2030.

For such a new technology that is scaling up fast, many aspects need to be studied. In this Special Issue, we solicit original research papers that will focus on the following aspects (i) system design, e.g., floater technologies, panel technologies, underwater cabling, mooring system, anchoring system, etc; (ii) system modelling, considering wind and wave effects, water-cooling effect, dynamic tilt, albedo, degradation, and water salinity; (iii) the monitoring system for determining both technical and environmental metrics; (iv) economical aspects, namely but not limited to the payback time, net present value (NPV),  and levelised cost of energy (LCOE); (v) environmental impacts.

This Special Issue aims to address the challenges that both on and offshore FPV systems are faced with, reflect the innovative research ideas, and report the current status of FPV systems. All aspects related to the broad spectrum of FPV systems are welcome which are related to deployment and practical testing, modeling and simulations, monitoring, and economic and environmental impacts. 

Dr. Sara Mirbagheri Golroodbari
Prof. Dr. Wilfried van Sark
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • floating PV system
  • offshore floating PV system
  • onshore floating PV system
  • floater technologies
  • dynamic tilt angle
  • water cooling effect
  • wave effect
  • degradation for FPV
  • FPV modelling
  • dynamic tilt angle for FPV
  • LCOE for FPV
  • FPV monitoring system
  • floating solar tracker
  • Albedo
  • environmental impact of FPV
  • architecture of FPV systems

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 1360 KiB  
Article
Floating Offshore Photovoltaics across Geographies: An Enhanced Model of Water Cooling
by Abdulhadi Ayyad, Sara Golroodbari and Wilfried van Sark
Energies 2024, 17(5), 1131; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17051131 - 27 Feb 2024
Viewed by 635
Abstract
Solar photovoltaics (PV) continues to grow rapidly across the world and now accounts for a very considerable proportion of all non-fossil-fuel electricity. With the continuing urgency of greenhouse gas abatement, the growth of solar PV is inevitable. Competition with other land uses and [...] Read more.
Solar photovoltaics (PV) continues to grow rapidly across the world and now accounts for a very considerable proportion of all non-fossil-fuel electricity. With the continuing urgency of greenhouse gas abatement, the growth of solar PV is inevitable. Competition with other land uses and the desire to optimize the efficiency of the panels by making use of water cooling are compelling arguments for offshore floating PV (OFPV), a trend that could also benefit from the existing infrastructure recently built for offshore wind farms. Building on our earlier work, we present a larger dataset (n = 82) located around the globe to assess global yield (dis)advantages while also accounting for a modified form of water cooling of the offshore panels. Using our results regarding the Köppen–Geiger (KG) classification system and using a statistical learning method, we demonstrate that the KG climate classification system has limited validity in predicting the likely gains from OFPV. Finally, we also explore a small subset of sites to demonstrate that economics, alongside geography and technology, impacts the feasibility of locating PV panels offshore. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Floating PV Systems On and Offshore)
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18 pages, 5658 KiB  
Article
Modeled and Measured Operating Temperatures of Floating PV Modules: A Comparison
by Maarten Dörenkämper, Minne M. de Jong, Jan Kroon, Vilde Stueland Nysted, Josefine Selj and Torunn Kjeldstad
Energies 2023, 16(20), 7153; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16207153 - 19 Oct 2023
Viewed by 985
Abstract
The power output of a photovoltaic system is dependent on the operating temperature of the solar cells. For floating PV (FPV), increased wind speeds can result in increased yield due to lowered operating temperatures, which has long been stated as a key advantage [...] Read more.
The power output of a photovoltaic system is dependent on the operating temperature of the solar cells. For floating PV (FPV), increased wind speeds can result in increased yield due to lowered operating temperatures, which has long been stated as a key advantage for FPV. So far, this effect has not been included in commercial software packages for yield estimation. Typically, only standard settings are provided, taking into account the mounting type (PVsyst) or mounting and module type (Sandia). This may result in an underestimation of the yield, and consequently, the estimated Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of the FPV project. In this study, a linkage between recorded module temperatures from FPV systems located in The Netherlands and Sri Lanka and the prevalent models employed within PVsyst and Sandia software for estimating module temperatures are established. Our findings reveal that the models within PVsyst and Sandia tend to overestimate module temperatures by 2.4% and 3%, respectively, for each 1 m/s increment in wind speed. We present two methods for determining the single heat loss coefficient, or U-value, tailored to specific sites accounting for local wind conditions. The first method computes the U-value based on the average monthly wind speed, whereas the second employs the irradiance-weighted average monthly wind speed. The latter method can be advantageous for locations characterized by significant fluctuations in wind speeds between night and day. Through a statistical residual analysis comparing measured and modeled module temperatures, we demonstrate that our proposed methods offer a more accurate representation of module temperature compared to the PVsyst and Sandia models when default settings are used. When we subsequently compute the specific yield using both measured and modeled temperatures, we observe that the approach using irradiance-weighted average wind speed shows a higher yield of up to 2% compared to the traditional methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Floating PV Systems On and Offshore)
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21 pages, 5138 KiB  
Article
Experimental Modelling of a Floating Solar Power Plant Array under Wave Forcing
by Sylvain Delacroix, Sylvain Bourdier, Thomas Soulard, Hashim Elzaabalawy and Polina Vasilenko
Energies 2023, 16(13), 5198; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16135198 - 06 Jul 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2424
Abstract
Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) plants are already well developed, and deployed all over the world, on calm water inland lakes, or in sheltered locations. They are now progressing to be installed in nearshore sites, and in deep water seas. The company HelioRec, developing floating [...] Read more.
Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) plants are already well developed, and deployed all over the world, on calm water inland lakes, or in sheltered locations. They are now progressing to be installed in nearshore sites, and in deep water seas. The company HelioRec, developing floating modules to form FPV arrays to be deployed in nearshore areas, was awarded free-of-charge testing of their system by the Marine Energy Alliance (MEA) European program. This paper describes the experimental testing of the 1:1 scale float system, composed of 16 floating modules supporting solar panels and three footpaths, carried out in Centrale Nantes’ ocean wave tank, allowing regular and irregular frontal and oblique wave conditions. Experimental results show that, even in the narrow wave spectrum experimentally achievable, a specific response from the array was revealed: the multibody articulated system exhibits a first-order pitch resonant mode when wavelengths are about twice the floater length. A shadowing effect, leading to smaller motions of rear floaters, is also observed, for small wavelengths only. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Floating PV Systems On and Offshore)
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