A Systematic Review of Floating Photovoltaic Plant Environmental Impacts

Solar photovoltaic installations are growing fast worldwide as a renewable alternative for power generation, although, there are some disadvantages of the conventional land-based solar power plants, such as the need of a large land area. Thus, floating photovoltaic power plants (FPV) have emerged as a new solution in solar energy; however, the environmental impacts of such installations are still being investigated. Here, we performed a systematic review to compile reported environmental impacts of FPV installations on water bodies. Twenty-nine papers were retrieved and had data related to environmental impacts of FPV extracted. We looked for any physical, chemical, and biotic parameters that were quantified to evaluate FPV effects (FPV versus a control without FPV). Alterations in parameters were classified as positive or negative impacts according to each study. We found very few studies with primary quantitative data, which does not allow us to draw a general pattern of impacts. The most reported alterations were decreased temperature and evaporation from the water body after FPV installation (~35% of the studies). We found 17 alterations classified as a negative impact, and only six as positive. As FPVs are an emergent energy alternative more investments are needed in studies directly focused on assessing its environmental impacts, particularly making an explicit comparison of FPV installation and a control to disentangle their effects on water quality, phytoplankton and the biota.