EPJPV Highlight - How cool is floating PV

The Editors-in-Chief of EPJ Photovoltaics, Pere Roca i Cabarrocas and Jean-Louis Lazzari, are pleased to highlight an important paper published recently in the Special Issue on ‘WCPEC-8: State of the Art and Developments in Photovoltaics’.

The article “How cool is floating PV? A state-of-the-art review of floating PV's potential gain and computational fluid dynamics modeling to find its root cause” is the result of the joint efforts of Gofran Chowdhury (imec, EnergyVille and University of Leuven), Mohamed Haggag (imec and University of Leuven), and Jef Poortmans (imec, EnergyVille, University of Hasselt and University of Leuven).

This paper on Floating PV presents a comprehensive review of the latest literature and white paper advertisements to elucidate the potential performance gains of FPV systems. While literature reports a wide range of energy yield enhancements, ranging from 0.11% to an astonishing 31.29%, their meticulous analysis ofs the influence of factors such as wind velocity, wind direction, water temperature, relative humidity, air temperature, proximity to water, and tilt angle on FPV system’s performance demonstrate that the main parameter is that FPVs are cooled by higher wind speeds over open water bodies. Via accurate modeling the authors show that the expected gains should be conservatively estimated at a maximum of 3%.

The Special Issue is edited by Alessandra Scognamiglio, Robert Kenny, Shuzi Hayase and Arno Smets and addresses new concepts related to High Efficiency Materials and Devices. WCPEC-8 (World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion), the World’s biggest platform for PV research and development, took place in September 2022 in Milan and had 5 main topics: Silicon Materials and Cells, Evolving and Emerging Technologies; Tandems, Photovoltaic Modules and BoS Components, PV Systems Engineering, Integrated/applied PV, and Energy transition – Integration, Storage, Sustainability, Policy, Finance, Ecology, Society.

Gofran Chowdhury, Mohamed Haggag and Jef Poortmans (2023), How cool is floating PV? A state-of-the-art review of floating PV's potential gain and computational fluid dynamics modeling to find its root cause, EPJ Photovoltaics 14, 24 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1051/epjpv/2023015