Tag Archive for: aquavoltaics

GivePower Desalinates Water Overseas Using Aquavoltaics 

“Austin, Texas-based GivePower started by installing solar panels for schools, community centers or other projects in communities in need. But GivePower founder Hayes Bernard realized that people, especially women and girls, would not attend school if they had to walk 8 miles to get water every day. That’s when the idea to include water pumps and desalination came to mind.  

GivePower has seven operational desalination sites in countries like Haiti, Kenya, and Colombia. Four additional solar water farms are expected to become operational by the end of this year. GivePower has different sized desalination sites and setups. The largest one, the Solar Water Farm Max, produces up to 18,500 gallons of water daily — enough to support 35,000 people. It has a solar structure that acts like a roof over the water tanks and the twenty-foot equivalent unit shipping containers that house the desalination technology.” – American Shipper 

Resource Guide for Decommissioning Solar Energy Systems 

A new resource guide on decommissioning solar energy systems, written by AgriSolar Clearinghouse partner Heidi Kolbeck-Urlacher, offers resources for understanding solar project end-of-lifecycle management and recommendations for local governments to consider when drafting decommissioning ordinances. The report is now available through the Center for Rural Affairs here 

“Solar projects are often located in rural areas and can provide numerous benefits to nearby communities, including lease payments to landowners, tax revenue to fund infrastructure and services, and the creation of both permanent and temporary jobs. County officials are typically responsible for enacting siting or zoning standards to help ensure solar development is supported by local residents. This can include planning for the eventual decommissioning of energy projects that have reached the end of their life cycles.”Center for Rural Affairs 

The guide includes examples of decommissioning costs, extending performance periods of solar systems, recycling and disposal of solar panels, sample task lists associated with decommissioning solar systems, and recommendations for plans that define obligations of developers during the decommissioning process.  

Chinese Fishery Deploys 70MW Solar Plant 

“Farms where fish and algae thrive under solar panels might have secured their place in a future powered by renewable energy. Concord New Energy, a Chinese company that specializes in wind and solar power project development and operation, has installed a 70 MW solar plant atop a fishpond in an industrial park in Cangzhou, China’s Hebei region. The hybrid system integrates solar power generation with fishery in a unique way that not only saves land but also produces clean energy. This hybrid system is straightforward: a solar array is installed above the fish pond’s water surface, and the water area beneath the solar array is used for fish and shrimp farming. 

The fishery-solar hybrid system is a type of floating solar farm that has grown in popularity over the years as solar power has evolved to meet the needs of our increasingly climactic times. For example, the United States has just begun construction of the country’s biggest floating solar farm in New Jersey.” – Interesting Engineering 

Valley Irrigation Develops Solar Irrigation Site in Nebraska 

Valley Irrigation has announced the completion of its first North American agrisolar installation in Nebraska through its partnership with Farmers National Company. 

“The installation is located near Davenport, Nebraska, and will provide solar power to a Valley center pivot by offsetting energy consumption used to irrigate the field. Farmers National Company’s landowner client invested in Tier 1 solar panels, which are the highest-quality panels and are also used on major utility-sized installations. They are built to withstand the often-harsh conditions of Nebraska weather, including strong winds and hail.” – Valmont 

“Matt Gunderson is with Farmers National Company and says it helps producers become more sustainable and increase return on investment. “We create some on farm generation not only to power a farm, but how do we tie it back into the grid system to support the electricity needs that are out there? And, along the way with it, sell that electricity back for some excess needs and create some investment opportunities and income generation for producers.” – Brownfield 

This article discusses the mechanism of local micro-climate changes caused by fishery complementary photovoltaic (FPV) power plants to illustrate the impact of FPV power plants in a lake on the environment. It includes details about comprehensive albedo decreases relative to free water surface, water energy change and air vapor pressure deficits. The article also reveals that the FPV panels had a heating effect on the ambient environment, and that the range of this effect was related to water depth.

This report describes a design for an automated, offshore-fish farm, with solar, wind and hydro power as well as a durable, physical structure. The design discussed in the article includes three separate, self-maintaining energies: tidal, wind, and solar. Also included are descriptions of various offshore aquaculture cages intended for deep-water ocean designs.

This article concerns a dynamic model that simulates the main biochemical processes in a milkfish pond that is subject to floating photovoltaic (FPV) cover. The paper includes a model design description that includes details of variable components of the design, including: water temperature, phytoplankton, dissolved oxygen, fish and other variables. Results of the experiment are included, and include: calibration results, ecological effects, and trade-offs between fish and energy production.

This article concerns floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems, also called floatovoltaics, or aquavoltaics, a rapidly growing emerging technology application in which solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are sited directly on water. Along with providing such benefits as reduced evaporation and algae growth, it can lower PV operating temperatures and potentially reduce the costs of solar energy generation. This article provides the first national-level (United States) estimate of FPV technical potential using a combination of filtered, large-scale datasets, site-specific PV generation models, and geospatial analytical tools. The authors quantify FPV co-benefits and siting considerations, such as land conservation, coincidence with high electricity prices, and evaporation rates. Our results demonstrate the potential of FPV to contribute significantly to the U.S. electric sector, even using conservative assumptions.

This thesis investigates using a flexible crystalline silicon-based FPV module backed with foam, which is less expensive than conventional pontoon-based FPV. This novel form of FPV is tested experimentally for operating temperature and performance and is analyzed for water-savings using an evaporation calculation. The results show that the foam-backed FPV had a lower operating temperature than conventional pontoon-based FPV, and thus a 3.5% higher energy output per unit power. A case study of Lake Mead found that if 10% of the lake was covered with foam-backed FPV, there would be enough water conserved and electricity generated to service Las Vegas and Reno combined. At 50% coverage, the foam-backed FPV would provide over 127 TWh of clean solar electricity and 633.22 million m3 of water savings.

This article reports findings of a simulation performed to assess the potential of floating photovoltaic power generation in the tropical Gavião reservoir, located in the Northeast of Brazil. The payback analysis indicates that the investment for construction of the system is fully recovered in 8 years, and that water losses due to evaporation can be reduced by approximately 2.6 x 106 m³/year, enough to supply roughly 50,000 persons.

This article evaluates several scenarios for optimal integration of hybrid renewable energy systems, including floating and floating-tracking PV systems into a representative shrimp farm in Thailand.

The article concerns a concept known as Wavevoltaics that consists of integrating the photovoltaic (PV) cells over the vacant open-sky surface of wave devices. This article is intended to deliver the conceptual view of modelling this device and a method to estimate the available power potential and to evaluate the performance of Wavevoltaic device.

This Idaho Law Review publication discusses existing policies in many jurisdictions that create unjustifiable obstacles to solar over water development. It uses the ongoing effort to install solar panels above portions of the Central Arizona Project’s canal system as a case study to highlight the significant potential benefits of solar over water development. The article then identifies specific policy changes capable of better facilitating and promoting these innovative and uniquely valuable renewable energy projects.