Floating Solar On Federal Reservoirs Could Power 100 Million Homes In The US – CleanTechnica

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Federal reservoirs could help meet the country’s solar energy needs, according to a study published in the journal Solar Energy. The study was conducted by Evan Rosenlieb and Marie Rivers, geospatial scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory together with Aaron Levine, a senior legal and regulatory analyst at NREL. It calculated for the first time exactly how much energy could be generated from floating solar panel projects installed on federally owned or regulated reservoirs. They concluded that those reservoirs could support enough floating solar panels to generate up to 1,476 terawatt-hours of electricity — enough to power approximately 100 million homes a year.

Of course, we know that data centers are vacuuming up as much renewable energy as they can find, leaving less available for residential use because we all must be able to use AI all the time so Google and Microsoft and the other big tech companies can make outrageous profits by getting us to pay for something we don’t understand and probably don’t need. The renewables industry loves to pitch the benefits of what they do as being good for Mr. and Mrs. America because that gives everyone a warm and fuzzy feeling. The truth is quite different, however.

Rosenlieb says that 1,476 TWh of electricity is the maximum possible if each of the reservoirs included in the study was covered with as many floating solar panels as possible. “We know we’re not going to be able to develop all of this. But even if you could develop 10% of what we identified, that would go a long way.” Levine and Rosenlieb have yet to consider how human and wildlife activities might impact floating solar energy development on specific reservoirs. But they plan to address this limitation in future work. The accuracy of the data they created could help developers plan more projects on US reservoirs and help researchers better assess how these technologies fit into the country’s broader energy goals.

Benefits Of Floating Solar

Floating solar panels, also known as floating PV, promise many benefits. According to TechXplore, not only do they generate electricity but they do so without competing for limited space on land, a crucial benefit in regions where land is scarce or expensive. By situating solar panels on water surfaces, developers can avoid conflicts over land use and preserve terrestrial ecosystems.

In addition, the solar panels provide environmental benefits beyond electricity generation. When floating on reservoirs, they shade the water, which reduces evaporation rates — a critical factor in areas suffering from drought conditions where every drop of water saved is valuable. The cooling effect of the panels can also improve the efficiency of the PV cells, potentially increasing electricity production.  “But we haven’t seen any large-scale installations, like at a large reservoir,” Levine said. “In the United States, we don’t have a single project over 10 megawatts.”

Previous studies have tried to quantify how much energy the country could generate from floating solar panels, but Levine and Rosenlieb are the first to consider which water sources have the right conditions to support these kinds of power plants. In some reservoirs, the wake from shipping or boat traffic can damage the mooring lines or impact the float infrastructure. Others get too cold, are too shallow, or have sloping bottoms that are too steep to secure solar panels in place.

Hydro-power reservoirs could be ideal locations for floating solar power plants, according to the researchers. A hybrid energy system that relies on both solar energy and hydro-power could provide more reliable and resilient energy to the power grid. In the event a drought depletes the reservoir at a hydro-power facility, solar panels could generate energy while the facility pauses to allow the water to replenish.

At new pumped storage hydro-power projects, some developers are creating entirely new bodies of water that are not connected to naturally flowing rivers, and so no humans or animals depends on them for recreation, habitat, or food yet, In the future, the researchers plan to review which locations are close to transmission lines or electricity demand, how much development might cost at specific sites, whether a site should be avoided to protect the local environment, and how developers can navigate state and federal regulations. The team would also like to evaluate even more potential locations, including other, smaller reservoirs, estuaries, and even ocean sites.

Solar On The Ocean

That last part raises some interesting possibilities. Offshore floating solar panels are an ideal way to address the solar energy needs of high population density countries like Indonesia and Nigeria, according to a study published in 2023 by David Firnando Silalahi and Andrew Blakers, both of the School of Engineering at the Australian National University. Furthermore, global heat maps show that the Indonesian archipelago and the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria have the greatest potential for floating solar arrays. Recent advances in technology and growing environmental concerns have sparked renewed interest in installing floating solar systems on the surface of the oceans.

While land-based solar options may be limited in highly populated regions due to land use conflicts, offshore floating solar installations offer an attractive alternative, especially in regions that experience calm seas with minimal waves and winds. Such areas could generate up to one million TWh per year — five times more than the energy needs of a fully decarbonized global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people, according to the researchers.

The proposed offshore solar installations would be located in the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, known to offshore sailors as the doldrums because of their lack of wind and calm seas. In the days of sail, ships would often get stuck in the doldrums, sometimes for weeks. The ICTZ extends approximately five degrees north and south of the equator, in which the prevailing trade winds of the northern hemisphere collide with the trade winds of the southern hemisphere, cancelling each other out. Due to intense solar heating near the equator, the warm, moist air is forced up into the atmosphere like a hot air balloon. Because the air circulates in an upward direction, there is often little surface wind in the doldrums.

My colleague Tina Casey has written about ocean-based floating solar on several occasions, including a story last year about plans to intersperse those systems between the towers of offshore wind installations. That idea is being considered for the North Sea, but will not get out of the starting gate in the US so long as the so-called president has taken a personal vow to eliminate offshore wind — and land-based wind as well — from the national conversation. Tina has also written about how new technologies have made offshore solar resilient to ocean storms.

All life on Earth depends on energy from the sun. Harvesting this free and virtually unlimited source makes so much sense and yet there are people pounding on the doors of the Oklahoma legislature to demand laws that ban renewable energy  We have entered an era or craziness in which people are so frightened by the future, they flock to leaders who promise a return to the past. I remember when Americans stood tall and faced the future with confidence and courage. Solar power has the ability to meet all human needs for energy without flooding the atmosphere with pollutants. If we choose to ignore the promise of renewable energy in all forms — including floating solar — we are committing ourselves and those who come after us to an unsustainable planet. What an unfortunate epitaph for the human race to say, “They were too afraid to do anything about their overheating planet. “