Offshore floating vs. land-based PV systems – pv magazine International

June 26, 2023 Bernadette Geyer

Researchers from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Growth at Utrecht College studied the affect of environmental elements ─ together with irradiation degree distinction, ambient temperature, wind velocity, precipitation, and sea floor temperature ─ on offshore floating photovoltaic programs (OFPVs) to develop regression fashions that can be utilized as a primary step to foretell yield benefits for OFPV deployment versus land-based programs.

“Whereas the know-how and the mounting sort are additionally necessary, our strategy goals to create a mannequin that neutralizes these results and isolates geography as a determinant issue of PV efficiency and the variations between offshore and onshore PV installations,” the group stated of their report. Two completely different strategies have been used to search out the correlation between the unbiased variables and the OFPV benefit: A number of linear regression (MLR) and multivariate polynomial regression (MPR).

Analyzing temperature variations between offshore and inland areas of 20 port cities, the staff discovered that, in virtually all places, the cooling impact of water resulted in decrease module temperatures. in OFPV websites utilizing a metal pontoon construction. As well as, in 70% of the websites, the typical worth of irradiation was greater for offshore programs in comparison with land-based ones. The report states that even in places the place coastal areas present a comparatively low common degree of irradiation, solely 20% of these resulted in a unfavorable distinction in power yield.

To simulate the anticipated efficiency benefits offshore, the researchers chosen places all over the world from completely different continents and local weather zones. For every web site, they used historic information on irradiation, temperature, and relative humidity from the Nasa Energy database – collected from January 2008 to January 2018. “To calculate the power yield benefit, we used the equal of 1 MWp of panels. For this, an space of ​​about 5200 m have to be positioned horizontally on numerous related pontoons assuming that we use the 310-Wp module,” stated the report.

The typical distinction in power yield for a 10-year interval varies between 20% and -4% for the places used. “The main discovering of this examine on the power profit between offshore and land-based PV programs is that the power profit is clearly site-specific. As well as, we developed a significant transformation mannequin that quantifies a particular correlation between a number of geographical and meteorological values ​​and the robust (lack of) benefit of deploying PV panels on the coast,” the report highlighted.

The researchers decided that OFPV just isn’t essentially the most sensible possibility for some places on the earth and that whereas the funding and set up prices are greater for OFPV in comparison with land-based programs, the programs offshore can’t spend for land.

The paper concludes that “there are some use circumstances the place offshore FPV development could seem advantageous, and in such conditions, entry to a geography-based regression mannequin equivalent to this mannequin helps resolution makers higher perceive their choices.”

Their findings are contained within the analysis article “Offshore floating photovoltaics system evaluation in a worldwide perspective,” revealed in Advances in Photovoltaics.