Environmental Impacts of Floating Solar Panels on Water Bodies Read more about Environmental Impacts of Floating Solar Panels on Water Bodies There has been a global trend of increasing deployment of floating solar panels (floatovoltaics) on water bodies over the last few years. Drivers for this have included potential reduction in evaporation and the desire to decarbonize electricity production. Given these environmental motivations, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the impact that floatovoltaics will have on the water body ecosystem itself, despite the many environmental goods and services which water bodies provide.
Ian Jones Keywords ecology hydrology lakes oceans atmosphere automated high-frequency data collection floating solar panels water body ecosystems Read more about Ian Jones Dr. Ian Jones is a lake physicist with more than twenty years’ experience researching lakes, oceans and the atmosphere. He works at the University of Stirling, UK, and specializes in using automated high-frequency data collection and numerical modeling to study the impact physical processes have on all aspects of lake ecology. His recent interests include the effects floating solar panels have on water body ecosystems and the potential for obtaining heat energy from lakes using heat pumps.