The Portuguese company SolarisFloat has developed a floating solar panel that moves with the sun.
According to Interesting Engineering, the new system is essentially a floating "island" with an electric motor and a different shaft design that allows it to absorb sunlight to increase efficiency.
As reported by the BBC, Protev (called the SolarisFloat device) was installed in the Dutch lake Oostvoornse Meer and consists of 180 mobile panels that together generate 73 kW of peak power. The panel is also double sided.
Protevs+ has an area of 15,543 square feet with a diameter of approximately 125 feet. The model's panel moves vertically with two-axis tracking, interesting engineering reports. The Protevs Single360 has a single shaft, but contains 360 modules which together produce a maximum output of 147 kW.
SolarisFloat claims that the shade created by the lake drive system also reduces evaporation from the lake by 60% and reduces algae, which has a positive impact on water quality.
Clean energy sources such as solar and wind are critical to reducing the dangerous overheating of our planet, as dirty energy sources such as oil and coal directly contribute to the pollution that overheats the planet.
For example, a single car typically pollutes more than 5 tons of carbon per year, while electric vehicles emit no tailpipe emissions. To reduce global warming, we need to invest in green energy projects that make solar and wind energy more efficient and affordable.
An advantage of setting up solar power plants on water is that solar power systems require large areas that often exceed the amount of land needed to produce equivalent electricity from dirty energy sources. Interesting Engineering claims that solar plants require 40-45 times the land of coal plants and 90-100 times the land for gas.
By installing solar panels on water, companies do not block physical space that could be occupied by buildings, agriculture or other forms of energy production.
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