The Land Sparing, Water Surface Use Efficiency, and Water Surface Transformation of Floating Photovoltaic Solar Energy Installations

Alexander E. Cagle, Alona Armstrong, Giles Exley, Steven M. Grodsky, Jordan Macknick, John Sherwin and Rebecca R. Hernandez
Additional contact information
Alexander E. Cagle: Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Alona Armstrong: Wild Energy Initiative, John Muir Institute of the Environment, UC Davis, CA 95616, USA
Giles Exley: Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK
Steven M. Grodsky: Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Jordan Macknick: Scientific Computing and Energy Analysis, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
John Sherwin: Florida Solar Energy Center, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32922, USA
Rebecca R. Hernandez: Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 19, 1-22

Abstract: Floating photovoltaic solar energy installations (FPVs) represent a new type of water surface use, potentially sparing land needed for agriculture and conservation. However, standardized metrics for the land sparing and resource use efficiencies of FPVs are absent. These metrics are critical to understanding the environmental and ecological impacts that FPVs may potentially exhibit. Here, we compared techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of four FPVs spanning different climatic regimes. Next, we defined and quantified the land sparing and water surface use efficiency (WSUE) of each FPV. Lastly, we coined and calculated the water surface transformation (WST) using generation data at the world’s first FPV (Far Niente Winery, California). The four FPVs spare 59,555 m 2 of land and have a mean land sparing ratio of 2.7:1 m 2 compared to ground-mounted PVs. Mean direct and total capacity-based WSUE is 94.5 ± 20.1 SD Wm −2 and 35.2 ± 27.4 SD Wm −2 , respectively. Direct and total generation-based WST at Far Niente is 9.3 and 13.4 m 2 MWh −1 yr −1 , respectively; 2.3 times less area than ground-mounted utility-scale PVs. Our results reveal diverse techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of FPVs, the capacity of FPVs to spare land, and the utility of WSUE and WST metrics.

Keywords: energy geography; energy siting; floatovoltaics; floating solar; land use; land sparing; renewable energy; solar energy; photovoltaics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8154/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8154/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:19:p:8154-:d:423110

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().