How many Kilowatt-hours of electricity can be generated in a floating PV Plant with the largest single capacity in China?
 
As long as you have a small pond, throwing a "board" into the water can generate electricity for your family. Do you believe it? That's the kind of thing floating PV, which might be able to help you achieve!
 
In recent years, with the increase of PV power stations on the ground, there is a serious shortage of land resources for installation and construction, which restricts the development of PV plants.
 
PV Power Generation
 
Compared with the surface resources, China has abundant water resources. The floating PV system enters into the public view. This kind of plant can make full use of reservoirs, lakes and other water resources. Therefore, the development of floating PV plants has unique advantages.
 
What is a floating PV plant?
 
Compared with the traditional ground PV plants, the floating PV plant is installed on the floating body of water, which does not occupy land resources.
 
Floating plants can be built on a variety of water bodies, like natural lakes, artificial reservoirs, coal mining subsidence areas and sewage treatment plants. As long as there is a certain amount of water, it can be installed.
 
Floating PV plants have self-cleaning ability, which can reduce evaporation by covering the water surface and inhibit the growth of microorganisms in the water to achieve water purification.
 
Floating PV plants can also make full use of water cooling to solve the cooling problem encountered by PV plants on the ground. At the same time, because there is no shelter over the water area and the light is sufficient, floating plants are expected to improve the power generation efficiency by about 5%.
 
The biggest feature of the floating PV power generation system is that it can be installed in the ocean, lakes (including salt water lakes), rivers (including seasonal drought and flood rivers), reservoirs, fish ponds, irrigation ponds, reservoirs and even wastewater treatment ponds.
 
What are the forms of power generation in the PV family?
 
In recent years, renewable energy generation systems have grown rapidly around the world. Solar power generation has become the most promising renewable energy generation mode, among which PV power generation plays a leading role.
 
According to authoritative statistics, by the end of the first quarter of 2021, China's installed renewable energy power generation capacity had reached 948 million KW, including 371 million kW of installed hydropower, 287 million KW of installed wind power, 259 million kW of installed PV power and 31.485 million kW of installed biomass.
 
At present, the domestic PV power generation system is mainly large centralized ground PV. Most of them are distributed in the west, north and other areas with better light resources. There are also a number of rooftop PV systems in China, which generally have less than one MW of installed capacity. Most rooftops are off-grid. In addition, there are PV curtain wall power generation systems, PV greenhouse, fish pond PV and so on.
 
Terrestrial PV systems are the most common form of PV power generation. It is easier to build a large centralized power generation system. It is convenient to clean and maintain PV modules. Generally, it is built in sparsely populated areas. Once a safety accident occurs, it will cause minimal personal injury and property loss. However, the supply of land resources is limited.
 
Compared with other forms of PV power generation, roof and curtain wall distributed PV power generation systems can save the cost of land lease. Almost no civil engineering foundation, installation and construction is more convenient and faster. In summer, PV modules can also play a certain role in shading and cooling the building.
 
However, the integrated building PV power generation system is often blocked by other buildings around it. The installation process is complex, which makes it impossible to build a large-capacity grid-connected PV power station. Because the building area is small, it often does not design the system with tilt angle in order to save space.
 
Floating PV systems are a new concept. It is suitable for all kinds of water surface, such as oceans, lakes, rivers, reservoirs, fish ponds, etc. It can save land. Compared with the ground type PV power generation system, it can save a lot of civil work. The installation and construction cycle is short. However, there is no industrialization at present. The price of equipment components is relatively high, and the construction is more complicated than the ground PV power generation system.