{"id":15303,"date":"2026-02-16T13:14:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultimabozza.it\/why-doesnt-italy-bet-on-floating-solar-on-water\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T16:05:39","slug":"why-doesnt-italy-bet-on-floating-solar-on-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultimabozza.it\/en\/why-doesnt-italy-bet-on-floating-solar-on-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Why doesn’t Italy bet on floating solar on water?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The renewables revolution is running faster than expected. IEA and IRENA estimate that by 2027 half of the world’s electricity will be generated from clean sources<\/strong>, a share set to rise to 55 percent by 2030. Leading the race is photovoltaics, which is growing at rates around 15 percent a year and, because of ease of installation, reduced maintenance and falling costs, now has the cheapest kWh on the market: between 3 and 6 cents, depending on latitude and climate. <\/p>\n\n

The power of solar, however, has one obvious constraint: space.<\/strong> Large installations on the ground can conflict with landscape and agricultural land, while rooftops, while valuable, are not enough for significant urban needs and cost more on a grid scale. The idea of moving gigawatts to the desert fascinates, but betrays the spirit of the transition: distributed grids, close to consumption. <\/p>\n\n

One promising solution would be there: bringing photovoltaics<\/g> to water<\/strong>. Natural and artificial reservoirs dot human habitat everywhere: irrigation reservoirs, disused quarries, canals, lagoons, sewage treatment tanks. Integrating floating modules into them frees up land, reduces visual impact and improves performance. Water cools the panels, enabling denser configurations and higher productivity, with slightly higher costs than land, but offset by efficiency. <\/p>\n\n

Evaporation is reduced<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

Then there is a side benefit that becomes central in hot climates and dry seasons: evaporation<\/strong>. By shading the water surface, floating PV can recover an average of about 10,000 cubic meters of water per year per covered hectare, an invisible reserve that supports agriculture and civil uses<\/strong>. The same is true for conventional hydropower plants, which occupy huge areas with their reservoirs: covering even a very small fraction of a reservoir with floating photovoltaics doubles the power output of the plant, while also avoiding the need to build a new electrical connection line. <\/p>\n\n

The global market has realized this. After early trials, floating PV is growing at 30-40% annually and has reached about 10 GW installed by 2024. The push has come from Southeast Asia and China, which have integrated solar on water with agrivoltaics, fish farming, and large hydropower reservoirs, creating dedicated industrial supply chains and economies of scale. <\/p>\n\n

The virtuous cases in Europe<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

But there are virtuous cases in Europe as well. In France, there is the Les Ilots Blandin (Haute Marne) plant<\/a>: opened on June 20, 2025, to date it is the largest FPV plant in Europe<\/strong>, built by Q ENERGY and Velto Renewables on 127 hectares of former flooded gravel pits decommissioned in 2020. A major achievement that highlights the scalability of FPV on brownfields and technological maturity. Over 135,000 PV modules distributed in six solar islands now float on these waters, with a total installed capacity of 74.3 MWp. The energy produced will be enough to provide annual electricity for the needs of about 37,000 people. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, there is the Merganser<\/strong> offshore pilot plant, off Scheveningen, which is small in power but interesting because it allows testing the possibilities of larger plants in complex environments such as marine environments, where solid anchorages are needed. It was built by the Dutch-Norwegian company SolarDuck and Germany’s RWE. <\/p>\n\n

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