Solar panels are one of the cheapest and most efficient ways of generating electricity but they also take up a lot of space.

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[Crossy]

Floating panels also reduce evaporation loss from reservoir surfaces, so there's no need for those awful (and potentially polluting) floating plastic balls.

 

 

[simon43]

Solar panels efficient at energy conversion?!  I think not!  (This is a technicalengineering comment and nothing to do with how 'clean' they are etc).

[Crossy]

3 minutes ago, simon43 said:

Solar panels efficient at energy conversion?!  I think not!  (This is a technicalengineering comment and nothing to do with how 'clean' they are etc).

 

Indeed (although they are getting better every day).

 

But since the input energy is free the true conversion efficiency doesn't really matter, the energy that comes out is still "free" (even 10% of zero is still zero) ...

[KhunLA]

TH @ # 5

https://www.ysgsolar.com/blog/5-largest-floating-solar-farms-world-2022-ysg-solar

 

 

[Yellowtail]

They're installing the floating panels on the lake at the Mahidol Salaya campus. 

 

[007 RED]

12 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

They're installing the floating panels on the lake at the Mahidol Salaya campus. 

 

I'm not surprised.  If you take a look at Google maps (satellite) of the campus, and zoom in, you will see that virtually every building roof is plastered with solar.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7952948,100.3226212,1605m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

[007 RED]

22 hours ago, Crossy said:

Floating panels also reduce evaporation loss from reservoir surfaces, so there's no need for those awful (and potentially polluting) floating plastic balls.

 

 

Just for clarity for the uninitiated.  Tthe solar panels are not actually floating on (touching) the water.  They are normally mounted on some form of pontoon which holds them above the water surface which allows air to circulate under them and helps reduce the heat that is generated by the photovoltaic process.