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A handful of Asian countries are leading the world in deployments of large-scale floating solar arrays — with some enormous projects in the works.
The background: Floating solar only recently graduated from niche applications to the big leagues, but the technology has quickly gained serious traction in land-constrained parts of the world.
It comes with added benefits. For one thing, the panels reduce evaporation, meaning floating solar is a particularly good fit for freshwater reservoirs and lakes in water-insecure places. The modules are also cooled by the water below — making them more efficient — while the systems effectively conserve land.
And there’s plenty of untapped potential out there. By one estimate, installing floating solar arrays on 10% of the surface area of the world’s inland reservoirs would yield 22TW of capacity — enough to cover all our power needs.
The latest: Developers are now turning their attention to the open sea, where there are few, if any, space constraints.
China Energy Investment Corporation, a state-owned entity, has started connecting a gigantic 1GW offshore solar facility to the grid. Located 8 kilometres off the coast of the city of Dongying, in Shandong province, the project will produce enough electricity to meet the needs of 2.7 million urban residents once complete, the developer says. And for good measure, it’ll also include fish farming.
Another state-owned power company, China Three Gorges Corporation, recently commissioned the first phase of a 180MW offshore project in the Fujian province, which will also house fish farms. The system is “typhoon resistant,” according to the developer, PowerChina — which is also installing a 1GW project off the Shandong coast and planning a 300MW installation in the Bohai Sea, off Hebei province.
The Chinese energy sector’s foray into offshore solar has been backed by the National Energy Administration, which took a decision in 2023 to support installations in areas with good solar irradiation levels and favourable construction conditions.
Elsewhere, a 373MW project was recently completed off Taiwan’s coast.
Indian utility THDC India is currently seeking consulting partners as it eyes grid-scale floating solar projects across the country, while the state of Uttar Pradesh plans to work with developers to install systems at 35 dams and reservoirs. Tata Power Renewable Energy recently commissioned a 126MW system on a lake in the central part of the country.
And an Indonesian developer is planning a 2.2GW project on a dam, which would be the world’s largest.
Primed for growth: China has 703MW of offshore solar capacity in operation, but at least another 12GW is under construction, according to calculations by BloombergNEF.
The global floating solar market will swell to 77GW of installed capacity by 2033, according to forecasts by Wood Mackenzie.
Those estimates could prove conservative if China’s ambitions materialise. Authorities in the nation’s Jiangsu province have launched an offshore solar development plan with the aim of connecting 10GW of offshore solar to the grid by 2027, and up to 20GW by 2030.
While Asia will continue to lead the way — particularly China, India and Indonesia — other regions are also ramping up deployments, including sunny and water-scarce Africa.
Mining groups in Zimbabwe have teamed up to build a 250MW floating solar system on the world’s largest man-made lake, Kariba Dam. The facility could be scaled up to 1GW, according to Bloomberg.
In Ghana, a 5MW solar array was recently installed on a reservoir and there are plans to scale it up to 15MW. The South African city of Cape Town, meanwhile, has completed smaller projects.
Elsewhere, the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory says federally controlled reservoirs in the country could host up to 1,042GW of floating solar capacity.
In France, a 20MW array has been built on a former gravel pit that’s been turned into a pond.
