INTERVIEW: Verogy executive provides update on floating solar projects

Verogy is currently working on four floating solar projects, totaling 100 MW, in New Jersey and Tennessee, the developer’s VP of Strategic Markets Ron Wedeking said in an interview with NPM.

Two of the projects are about 5 MW and the remaining two are utility-scale — a 40 MW project in New Jersey and a 50 MW project with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The new portfolio will be built in partnership with floating solar solution providers, US Floating Solar and Ciel & Terre. While adoption of floating solar in the US is still early-days, the upward trend is undeniable with installed MW growth steadily doubling every year.

“[Floating solar] on a really good growth curve,” Wedeking said. “It's being more accepted by municipalities and utilities, so I see that as a big growth area for us.”

In a previous interview with NPM, Wedeking said prospecting for land-based solar projects in certain agricultural and woodland areas are becoming more contentious due to push back from local residents.

Wedeking attributes the growth of the floating solar market along with the uptick in brownfield projects to the increasing need for suitable land.

“The future is very bright for floating solar, as we run out of quality land to build solar farms,” Wedeking said. “Floating solar is a very logical next choice to select for locating large solar projects.”

Verogy’s four floating solar projects will take several years to complete since the length of permitting processes can vary, especially as the projects become larger and need to go through ISOs for studies and substation construction.

In both New Jersey and Tennessee, the West Hartford-based developer will build floating solar projects on top of 40-to-50-acre gravel pits that have filled with water and turned into “mini lakes.”

“That is what is so great about using old land that can never be built on again,” Wedeking said. “It’s something that benefits the electricity grid.”

Verogy is also taking this product expansion out west to California due to the many reservoirs across the state.

California has major water supply issues, and floating solar also has the ability to reduce evaporation by up to 20 percent of the body of water that it's sitting on.

“The millions of gallons that evaporate out of reservoirs in the California market are stunning and that's a precious resource in the West,” Wedeking said.

Challenges

There are a few drawbacks when it comes to floating solar, but they’re slight in comparison to the positive impacts. These include higher costs — USD 0.50 more per watt — because developers have to use anchors, which require divers and safety gear, according to Wedeking.

The special anchoring systems also need to be flexible, able to withstand the impact of high winds.

Once the pre-development milestones are hit, construction for these four projects will take about six to nine months — four months to build and another two months for electrical hookups— depending on the size of the projects.

Electrical hookups take a crew of four-to-eight people, hooking multiple panel floats together with walkways and racking. Wires then go either right underneath the panels where inline inverters are kept, or they run the wires to a land-based inverter.

To run electric lines through the water and up to the shore, developers use special underwater electric cables, which tend to be expensive.

Sets of floats keep getting pushed out into the water and linked together until all 3,000 panels are floating.

“It's like a Lego set that gets put together — it's fascinating,” Wedeking said. “The cost is not ridiculously high, but it is higher. That is a factor, but the societal benefits are just tremendous. So, it really depends on what the needs are of the various municipalities or utilities and how it fits.”

Wedeking continued explaining the array design saying storage is a big possibility for these projects as well.

There are not any state or local tax credit incentives specific to floating solar projects, but there are other IRA incentives that can help with the development of the “array islands” such as using a pond on an old coal mine site or developing in an energy area designated by Congress.

Like land projects, another possible drawback of floating solar projects is they can sometimes face local pushback unless a developer utilizes unfavorable bodies of water such as reservoirs or ponds in wastewater treatment plants.

“We're really careful with our selection of locations,” Wedeking said. “An ideal location is not a beautiful lake with lots of great houses around it that enjoy their view of the water and water skiing with the kids in the summertime — that’s not a great candidate for floating solar.”

Wastewater treatment plants are also favorable for solar development, because the panels help prevent the sun from creating algae, which means wastewater treatment plants use less chemicals.

AB CarVal took a minority stake in Verogy in May 2022. The other investors in the company include Stonehenge Growth Capital LLC, who provided pre-seed equity capital to the platform in 2018 and Verogy management.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.

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