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Floating solar power could help fight climate change — let’s get it right

Covering 10% of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with ‘floatovoltaics’ would install as much electrical capacity as is currently available for fossil-fuel power plants. But the environmental and social impacts must be assessed.
  1. Rafael M. Almeida

    1. Rafael M. Almeida is an assistant professor in the School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA.

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  2. Rafael Schmitt

    1. Rafael Schmitt is a senior scientist at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, California, USA.

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  3. Steven M. Grodsky

    1. Steven M. Grodsky is co-founder and co-director of the Wild Energy Initiative, Institute of the Environment, University of California, Davis, USA.

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  4. Alexander S. Flecker

    1. Alexander S. Flecker is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.

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  5. Carla P. Gomes

    1. Carla P. Gomes is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and director of the Institute for Computational Sustainability, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.

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  6. Lu Zhao

    1. Lu Zhao is director of renewables and energy-storage systems at Envision Digital International, Singapore.

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  7. Haohui Liu

    1. Haohui Liu is a senior staff scientist at Envision Digital International, Singapore.

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  8. Nathan Barros

    1. Nathan Barros is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil.

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  9. Rafael Kelman

    1. Rafael Kelman is executive director of PSR Inc., Brazil.

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  10. Peter B. McIntyre

    1. Peter B. McIntyre is an associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA.

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Panorama view of a water reservoir with floating solar panels leading to land under the sunlight.

Reservoirs could offer alternatives to land for hosting solar panels. Credit: Valentyn Semenov/Alamy

Solar panels need to be deployed over vast areas worldwide to decarbonize electricity. By 2050, the United States might need up to 61,000 square kilometres of solar panels — an area larger than the Netherlands1. Land-scarce nations such as Japan and South Korea might have to devote 5% of their land to solar farms2.

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Nature 606, 246-249 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01525-1

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Supplementary Information

  1. Supplementary figure and methods

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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