By now most of the world is largely aware of the benefits of solar energy. They are a great, non-polluting way to light our lamps and run our televisions and so on. But a negative argument put against land-based solar farms is that they occupy large sections of precious land resources which could be utilised for farming, or even living. The solution? Let’s put the solar panels on water bodies to make floating solar farms. Though it sounds like the perfect answer, is it really that safe to cover the lakes and reservoirs with huge panels?
Three commercial-size floating solar arrays have already been deployed in the United Kingdom. Many others are also operational across the world.
Water bodies are complex and diverse. So, a team of scientists tried to analyse what would be impact of these floating solar farms on the overall ecosystem of the aquatic ranges.
According to a new study, these floating farms could also be crucial in protecting lakes and reservoirs from harmful effects of climate change. While most solar panel you may have seen are on rooftops or large empty fields, Researchers from Lancaster University and the University of Stirling propose floating solar farms to save our precious water bodies and sustain our ever-increasing need to energy.
“Floating solar could help to mitigate against the negative effects global warming will have on these bodies of water,” said lead author Giles Exley from Lancaster University. The study has been published in the journal Solar Energy.
UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology used data from England’s largest lake in Windermere to create computer simulations. The observations revealed such floating arrays could help in cooling the water’s temperature by shielding it from direct sunlight. Furthermore, growth of toxic blue-green algae, which is a growing problem, can be prevented.
However, there might be certain negative impacts as well. According to Exley, the detrimental impacts could include ‘deoxygenation’ which would cause undesirable increase in certain nutrient concentrations. Fishes and other aquatic animals could suffer, possible die.
While the positive effects of floating solar panels look promising, the negative impacts need to be studied more, says Exley.