Energy economics and environmental assessment of hybrid hydel-floating solar photovoltaic systems for cost-effective low-carbon clean energy generation

The simultaneous escalation in energy consumption and greenhouse gases in the environment drives power generation to pursue a more sustainable path. Solar photovoltaic is one of the technologies identified as a possible source of clean, green, and affordable energy in the future. The vast land area occupied by solar photovoltaics to generate electricity suggests that large photovoltaic facilities be built on the water surface, serving the dual purpose of saving land, increasing efficiency and power output. Despite the remarkable geophysical conditions of India, the evaluation of floating solar photovoltaic power plants revealed little involvement in this technology. This research aims to offer a comprehensive technical and sustainable goal-based analysis to provide an efficient hybrid hydel-floating solar photovoltaic system. In this paper, an assessment of a 96 megawatt power plant is done to show the economic and ecological benefits of a floating solar photovoltaic system. A comparison of land-based photovoltaic, floating solar photovoltaic, and hybrid hydel-floating solar photovoltaic is done to check the cost-efficiency and sustainability. The result indicates that the floating solar photovoltaics system produces 81.39 gigawatt-hour excess generation with 2.4% more energy yield compared to the land-based photovoltaic system. The total water saved is 69.4 mcm. The equivalent carbon reduction is 123,454.53 tons of CO2. The levelized cost of energy generation is 3.23 $/W, which is 2.3% less than the current price of electricity. The floating solar photovoltaic help in achieving sustainable development goals along with the protection of the ecological system.