Floating PV systems have established themselves as a way of opening up new areas for ground-mounted photovoltaic systems. However, a number of technical and regulatory uncertainties are hindering their worldwide distribution. This is the conclusion of the report “Floating Photovoltaic Power Plants: A review of Energy Yield, Reliability, and maintenance” by the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Program (IEA PVPS). According to the report, there are still uncertainties regarding yield modeling, degradation mechanisms and the development of cost-efficient operating and maintenance strategies.

The publication provides a comprehensive overview of the performance of floating PV (FPV) systems, focusing on the key aspects that differentiate FPV from conventional ground-mounted PV (GPV) systems: Energy Yield Assessment, System Reliability, and Operation and Maintenance (O&M). As floating PV expands inland and moves offshore, this report aims to support the responsible and efficient deployment of FPV inland and nearshore.

Although various parties such as the World Bank and the industry association SolarPower Europe have developed some technical guidelines for floating PV systems, quantitative guidelines on yield modeling and reliability are lacking, according to the report. To address these gaps, the report presents a set of data-based insights, models and parameters to help improve the accuracy of energy yield predictions, reliability and lifetime maintenance of FPV systems.