Solarplaza Summit | Floating PV Europe

Overview of FPV's role in Europe’s renewable energy strategy, touching on market trends, policy support, and opportunities in inland and near-shore FPV.

In this legal deep-dive, Jeantet will provide a concise overview of the regulatory landscape for floating PV projects across Europe, including key differences between national frameworks and European-level developments. The presentation will then zoom in on the French permitting process. Particular attention will be given to the complex biodiversity implications associated with FPV installations, currently the main legal challenge for developers.

DNV will release its long-awaited standard for mooring systems in June. This session is your opportunity to get up to speed on the upcoming guidelines and understand how to ensure a reliable and cost-optimized mooring system design for floating solar projects. Don’t miss this essential update shaping the future of FPV engineering.

In this session, we explore how real-world engineering, smart design decisions, and project scaling strategies can cut costs by up to 80% per Wp without compromising on risk. Drawing from a pilot-to-40 MW case on a reservoir with 55 meters of water variation, learn from Seaflex how to scale safely and cost effectively!

Many mining sites have been developed and left since the Industrial Revolution, and right now we are in energy transition era. Some of the sites could transform with the help of floating PV, like coal mining subsidence area with accumulated water. Sungrow has delivered many projects of such scenario in China and south-east Asia, and there are also many this kind of sites in other part of the world, including EU. 

FPV project experience of this case shared here, which may help project owners, developers, and renewable energy stakeholders to know better about this kind of application.

This session presents Ocean Sun’s innovative approach to floating solar PV (FPV), designed for high performance, low cost, and resilience in challenging environments. The presentation will introduce Ocean Sun’s patented technology, followed by key insights from a recent deployment on a tropical island. The project integrates FPV with battery storage and diesel generation within a microgrid for optimized self-consumption. The session will highlight system design, lessons learned from real-world operations in a harsh marine climate, and how floating solar can enable cleaner, more reliable energy in remote locations.

As floating solar expands globally, understanding its environmental interactions with freshwater reservoirs is critical for sustainable deployment. This presentation explores the results of computational modeling to assess the physical impacts of FPV on waterbodies. By analyzing different FPV configurations, including variations in "light island" geometries—gaps within the arrays—the study provides key insights into how these designs influence water temperature, mixing, and ecosystem health. The findings offer valuable guidance for developers and policymakers looking to optimise FPV layouts for both energy efficiency and environmental sustainability

Experts discuss strategies to mitigate financial risks and create scalable solutions.