Design and Simulation of a Floating Solar Power Plant for Goreagab Dam, Namibia

Introduction

It is a well-known fact that energy production requires land, water, fuel, and heavy financial investments. Thus, there is a nexus between several aspects such as land, fuel, water and even food (Musti, 2021; Al-Widyan et al, 2021). Almost all nations in the world are opting for solar energy due to financial savings, however availability of land is a major issue. Though, solar energy is inexhaustible, economical, renewable and natural; it requires a lot of land when compared to fossil fuel based energy generation (Malu et al, 2017). Sub-Saharan countries are facing shortages of energy and food and a greater degree of resource nexus can be seen. Thus, establishing economical energy production systems with reduced conflict between resources is imperative, especially for countries like Namibia (Musti, 2021).

Of late, several nations have started setting up solar based energy plants in waterbodies like rivers, canals and even in the ocean (Tarigan, 2021; Radhiansyah et al., 2021; PRNewswire, 2021; Laila, 2021; AgriSolar, 2022). Though there are a good number of solar plants that were set up on waterbodies, two major projects one from Netherland (EnergyLive, 2019) and the other one from Singapore (PRNewswire, 2021) are purpose built with distinct advantages (Ranjbaran et al., 2019). These are typically known as Floating Solar Photo Voltaic Systems (FSPV Systems). The novelty of these FSPV systems brings in several advantages including effective usage water resources, reduction of water evaporation losses, off-shore energy production that can save use of regular on-shore land etc. However, it should be noted that capacity addition requires in-depth investigations such as techno-economic studies, environmental impact studies, resource conflicts and overall benefits to the society in terms of providing employment etc. (Azran & Majid, 2014). Different advances and disadvantages are associated with different energy production with different fuels. In case of solar energy, the major challenge is the large volumes of land requirement, which may result in a conflict with agricultural/ food production (Pearce and Dinesh, 2016). Several other parameters such current grid operating conditions, supply-demand-gap, demand forecast, ongoing Demand Side Management (DSM) policies, intended location of new plant etc., also play their own role in feasibility studies (Hauwanga & Musti, 2022). Dominance of solar energy in the overall energy pool can lead to duck curve phenomena (Pitra & Musti, 2021). Liberal DSM incentives to reduced energy use can lower the overall demand as well (Musti et al, 2020). On the other hand, several developed nations encouraging conserving the energy through circular economy principles. Smart cities based on circular economies may have localized energy generation and may be less dependent on the regular power grids (Musti, 2020).