Where Sun Meets Water: Floating Solar Handbook for Practitioners

Floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) technology is considered commercially viable, given the number of largescale projects that have been implemented. Challenges to its deployment remain, however, including the lack of a robust track record; uncertainty about costs; uncertainty about the environmental impact; and the technical complexity of designing, building, and operating on and in water (especially electrical safety, anchoring and mooring issues, and operation and maintenance). This handbook provides developers, utilities, contractors, investors, regulators, and decision makers with practical guidelines on FPV projects. Most of the handbook focuses on technical aspects relating to developing and operating FPV projects; some sections focus on commercial and legal aspects. Most of the observations are made for inland water bodies or near-shore coastal FPV installations. All recommendations provided in this report are based on past and current experiences, which are limited to several years of operating data for most projects. Through this handbook, the World Bank Group, the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) hope to contribute to this goal and to disseminate lessons learned from early projects.