Floating Solar’s Role in Staying Hydropower Development in Africa

Abstract Submission: Africa's renewable energy future faces challenges from climate change impacts on hydropower and the complexities of integrating diverse renewable sources. While hydropower represents the dominant share of electricity production for several African countries and there remains much unexploited potential, its vulnerability to droughts, high upfront costs, cost overruns, and social and environmental ramifications motivate exploring alternatives to further expansion. Floating solar photovoltaics (FPV) is a promising technology, offering a cost-competitive and climate-resilient option to expand renewable energy generation. FPV can be integrated with existing hydropower infrastructure, optimizing energy production and mitigating the intermittency of solar power at shorter time scales. Challenges such as site-specific constraints and potential environmental impacts exist, but there are several major reservoirs in Africa where FPV coverage would be relatively small and less likely to interfere with other uses. Meanwhile, FPV’s power production could approach that of planned mega-hydropower projects. To that end, we present a techno-economic analysis of FPV for the African continent to assess cost-effective scales of FPV investment. We also highlight river basins such as the Zambezi Watercourse where system-scale analysis shows that FPV is a cost-efficient alternative to major planned dams and can reduce annual electricity generation variability by as much as 12% compared to a hydropower-intensive development pathway.

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