Economic Analysis of Floating Photovoltaic Plant in the Context of India

Floating photovoltaic power plant (FPV) is an installation of solar photovoltaic modules on the water bodies. FPV, as compared to solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plant, does not require any landholdings, and therefore, the land is conserved. FPV has slightly greater energy generation than SPV due to the cooling effect of water. FPV conserves the water by preventing evaporation. FPV requires additional floating and support structure than SPV, thus incurring higher cost and complexity of installation structure. In this paper, an economic analysis of installing 1 MW FPV power plant in Jaipur, Rajasthan, is done. Economic parameters for 1 MW SPV are calculated by considering different land costs. Economic analysis of 1 MW FPV plant is done by considering different values of cost–benefit of potable water. The cost of potable water saved by FPV is included as income. With a capital cost of installation of ₨. 8 crores; the LCOE for 1 MW FPV plant is estimated to be 5.93  ₨/kWh for zero water tariff. Whereas for water price of ₨. 0.5 per litre, LCOE is just 0.89 ₨/kWh. On the other hand, the LCOE of SPV having a negligible land cost and capital cost of ₨. 4.76 crore is found to be 3.9 ₨/kWh. The LCOE value for SPV increased to 4.7 ₨/kWh (for SPV with ₨. 40.48 lakh per acre land cost). FPV with 0.2 ₨. per litre, water cost yields LCOE of 3.9 ₨/kWh, which is equal to the LCOE value obtained for the SPV plant with the negligible land cost.