New Supersized Floating Solar System Puts Catamarans To Work

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The relatively new field of floating solar is already scaling up into multiple megawatts, if not here in the US, then elsewhere around the world. One indication of things to come is a new, scaled-up floating solar system from the French firm Ciel & Terre, featuring a structure inspired by pyramids and a maintenance service streamlined by specialized catamarans.

Floating Solar Grows Up

If Ciel & Terre rings a bell, it should. The firm keeps offices around the world, including in the US, where it has been front and center in the launch of a domestic floating solar industry, enabling the nation’s solar resources to expand into new territory without taking up valuable space on land.

As one illustration of scale-up potential in the floating solar sector, seven years ago Ciel & Terre completed a modestly-sized 252 kW floating array located at a waterworks in California. The next year, the company began work on a 1.78 MW array at a wastewater treatment plant, also in California, followed by a 4.4 MW project on a water supply reservoir in New Jersey, billed as the largest floating solar array in the US and Canada.

All together, the company’s global portfolio of floating systems totals 1.31 gigawatts of installed capacity with another 1.8 gigawatts in the pipeline.

Earlier this week, Ciel & Terre launched its new “Fusio” floating structure. Designed for large scale projects, the new system deploys a pyramid-inspired substructure that can be adapted for practically any solar panel on the market.

“The triangular shape of the Fusio structure is inspired by the great principles of structural engineering and architecture (bridges, pyramids, skyscrapers, etc.),” the company explains. “It is the most stable and simplest geometric shape to build to resist external forces.”

The Catamaran Factor

Structural durability is a necessary feature of floating solar systems, which can be exposed to surface choppy conditions in addition to weather events. Ciel & Terre also cites improved air flow, achieved by reducing the footprint of the floaters and raising the elevation of the panels, helping to cool the panels and improve solar conversion efficiency in warm climates.

The new system is also designed to reduce manufacturing costs and transportation expenses. “Thanks to its compact and triangular design, Fusio® reduces transport volumes and associated costs. Our FPV solution makes logistics more efficient, especially for remote or large-scale sites,” the company explains.

The company has also focused attention on reducing maintenance costs while avoiding worker safety risks, deploying a specialized boat for the task. “Fusio® revolutionizes FPV maintenance through its exclusive catamaran-based process, enhancing the power plant yield over time while making maintenance work safer and more efficient,” Ciel & Terre enthuses. “This specialized boat navigates directly over the floating solar structure, providing easy, fast, and secure access to every single PV panel, inverter, and cabling.”

“The system eliminates the need for operators to walk on the array or manually transport heavy electrical devices across the FPV plant,” they add.

A Habitat-Friendly Floating Solar Power Plant

Meanwhile, earlier this week the German firm Sinn Power splashed itself across the Intertubes with news of a first-of-its-kind-in-the-world floating solar system.

The news organization Offshore Energy was among those with the scoop. “German-based developer of floating renewable energy platform solutions SINN Power has commissioned what is described as the world’s first vertical floating photovoltaic (PV) system at the Jais gravel pit in the Starnberg district, Bavaria, marking a new milestone in renewable energy deployment on inland water surfaces,” Offshore Energy reported on October 13.

The vertical configuration allows for a compact footprint that optimizes power generation while minmizing surface area, a key consideration for bodies of water that host recreational activities and aquatic habitats for wildlife.

“The patented SKipp system developed by SINN Power introduces a vertical east–west module orientation, separated by open water corridors at least four meters wide,” Offshore Energy explains. “According to SINN Power, this setup supports steady power generation throughout the day and enhances output during morning and evening hours when conventional PV systems generate less electricity.”

The stabilizer and movement control for the system is enabled by a subsurface structure resembling the keel of a ship, designed specifically for gravel pits, abandoned quarries, and other waters deep enough to accommodate the subsurface equipment.

The new 1.87 MW solar array was commissioned earlier this week. It has already enabled the adjacent gravel operation to reduce its use of grid-sourced electricity by almost 60%. The gravel plant operator expects to reduce their grid use by up to 70% once the array is fully operating as designed. An additional 1.7 MW floating array is also planned for the same site.

Wait, Why Not Here In The US?

As for floating solar happening in the US, well, the US does have has a vast store of suitable sites for floating arrays on human-made ponds and lakes as well as industrial sites, abandoned quarries, and the like.

The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory ran the numbers in 2018 and spotted a total of about 89,000 human-made bodies of water in the US that could host floating solar arrays. Weeding out sites with competing uses and other limitations, the lab estimated that the US hosts more than 24,000 potential sites for floating solar, representing just 12% of the area of the total. “Many of these eligible bodies of water are in water-stressed areas with high land acquisition costs and high electricity prices, suggesting multiple benefits of FPV technologies,” the lab noted.

That reference to “water-stressed” is the lab’s way of reminding everyone that floating solar panels help conserve water resources, by preventing evaporation. Aside from benefiting general water supply systems, floating solar can also save water, and money, for water-dependent industrial operations that use their own lagoons and reservoirs.

Such is the fruitful solar energy landscape inherited by US President Donald Trump upon taking office earlier this year, but woe is us. For reasons best known only to himself, the President aims to take down the entire US solar industry, floating or not, with a complacent Republican-majority Congress firmly at his side.

If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress and let them know what you think.

Photo: A new floating solar system from the firm Ciel & Terre aims to cut the cost of installing and maintaining large-scale solar arrays while improving solar conversion efficiency (screenshot, cropped, via Ciel & Terre).