Techno-Economic Environmental and Social (TEES) Potential Assessment of Mega-Scale Grid-Connected Floating PV Power Plants in Five Climate Zones of Pakistan /

Abstract

Artificial or man-made water bodies like dams and barrages can serve to be a forward approach to deploying domestic and commercial scale floating photovoltaic systems with no land procurement constraints and higher efficiency. This paper aims to investigate the integrated techno-economic, environmental, and social (TEES) analysis of 2.5 MW grid-connected floating photovoltaic systems (FPV) over five climatic zones of Pakistan with the aims of tapping the advantages of FPV like reducing water evaporation and higher efficiency due to the natural cooling effect of water. The proposed study is carried out in three folds, in the first fold, the technoeconomic assessment has been performed in PVsyst software. In the second fold, environmental analysis is conducted and later an equivalent forest absorbing CO2 emissions assessment has been carried out through RETScreen Expert. The socio analysis is observed in the third fold based on various SDGs indicators. From a technoeconomic and environmental perspective, results reveal that Sabakzai Dam (Zone C) with cold in winter and hot in summer climate conditions proved the most feasible site with a Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $0.047/kWh and net present value (NPV) of million $1.7705, respectively. In contrast, Ghazi Brotha Dam (Zone B) with mild cold climate conditions proves the least feasible site as compared to others for installation of FPV plant with LCOE of $0.057/kWh and NPV of million $1.0256, respectively. The environmental analysis also shows a similar trend, Sbakzai Dam (Zone C) saved the highest CO2 emissions i.e., 20.50% more as compared to Zone B (Ghazi Brotha). Results show 43125.7 tons and 34283.8 tons of carbon emissions which are equivalent to 3924.439 and 3119.826 hectares of forest absorbing carbon for Sabakzai Dam (Zone C) and Ghazi Brotha Dam (Zone B), respectively. Comparative analysis of FPV with SPV observe a performance ratio (PR) of 5-10% higher than SPV and the highest capacity utilization factor (CUF) of 22% for Sabakzai dam (zone C). To ameliorate such adverse effects, FPV technology may provide clean and green energy to increase energy access across the regions. This study can lead to policy recommendations and optimization of private and government sectors of Pakistan toward investment in the FPV sector.