Floating solar PV standards being developed by DNV
Floating solar PV (FPV) is intriguing. As large-scale ground-mounted PV development becomes more and more challenging due to difficult terrain or land scarcity, many water bodies remain largely available for power generation. DNV estimates that the potential global capacity for deploying floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) power is currently around 4 terawatts (TW). Current global installed FPV capacity is rather paltry, around 2 GW, but DNV foresees a total of 7-11 GW to be installed by 2025 with a major increase from 2023 onwards.
Getting there, and beyond, will require more standards. FPV players are mostly relying on inconsistent and diverse procedures and adjacent codes adopted from other sectors. Without more standards, the segment will have a tough time scaling, and project delays and obstacles in permitting and authorization will be an ongoing issue.
DNV is driving an initiative to develop these standards, starting with a joint industry project (JIP) involving 24 of the sector’s leaders that developed the first recommended practice (RP) on the design, development, and operation of FPV systems. DNV-RP-0584 was successfully introduced in 2021 as the first step on the path towards FPV standards and certification.
Following this breakthrough, DNV has strived to collaborate with industry players to move from recommended practices to FPV-specific reference standards.
For this step, DNV has taken the lead on two new JIPs.
- The first is to share and improve the best practices for the design of FPV-specific anchoring and mooring structures. Based on a selection of floating solar concepts, the project – which gathers stakeholders from all areas of the FPV field –, will address a variety of challenges expected when deploying installations in larger islands with shallow drafts.
- The second JIP proposes to draw from DNV’s expertise and network to create an adequate unified FPV-specific floats design, testing and qualification standard that will introduce clearer, faster and cheaper performance-based procedures that are layout-neutral and failure-mode-specific.
“The use of industry standards will ultimately lead to higher quality, lower failure rates and more adequate access to data-driven digital solutions and assurance services like verification and certification.This can only be achieved through joint efforts and continuous knowledge sharing”, says Juan Carlos Arévalo, executive vice president at GPM&S, a DNV company. “This will not lead to the convergence of floating solar photovoltaic technology into a dominant concept, but rather establish a common approach to analysis and simulation that allows players to consistently improve on one another’s best practices and lay out industry-wide testing and quality assurance procedures.”
“FPV structures present unique challenges to the solar industry due to specific hydrodynamic loads, risks of corrosion and specific components, such as floats, anchors and mooring lines, says Dana Olson, global segment lead for solar power, Energy Systems at DNV. “Several large customers in the solar community have requested that we develop new, tailored standards to guide them in the development of resilient FPV projects. In particular, our input on the determination of design environmental loading will provide crucial guidance to the whole field, and we’re eager to engage directly with customers across the industry at this crucial step of FPV project development.”
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