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Floating solar photovoltaic installations open new opportunities for scaling up solar generating capacity, especially in countries with high population density and competing uses for available land. Advantages of floating solar over land-based systems include higher energy yield, reduced evaporation, and improved water quality, among others. Combining floating solar with hydropower plants is of particular interest. Flexible hydropower output can be used to smooth the variability of the solar generation, while making better use of existing transmission assets, particularly beneficial in countries with weak grids. With a global estimated potential of 400 gigawatts, under conservative assumptions, floating solar could double the...
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Achieving global goals for access to energy and mitigation of climate change will require a quadrupling of present levels of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation in the developing world by 2025 to reach around 950 gigawatt (GW)1. This represents an investment of more than US$500 billion in new solar PV generation alone. To reach this objective, large amounts of private funding will have to be unlocked to complement the limited public financing available. Yet most developing countries still lack a pipeline of bankable solar projects for consideration by the private sector. To develop one, countries must take a series of key...
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In the last few years, IFC has prioritized an approach to creating bankable private sector infrastructure opportunities that is called Scaling focusing not on single asset development, but on a holistic approach that creates a pipeline of infrastructure projects. The essence of the Scaling approach is to develop a robust public-private partnership (PPP) model for a single deal and then replicate it. This spreads costs, enhances impact, and encourages programmatic, competitive tendering, with faster delivery and lower prices genuinely creating new markets. In some countries, this approach involved working with governments to design a process. In others, IFC has worked...
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Floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) technology is considered commercially viable, given the number of largescale projects that have been implemented. Challenges to its deployment remain, however, including the lack of a robust track record; uncertainty about costs; uncertainty about the environmental impact; and the technical complexity of designing, building, and operating on and in water (especially electrical safety, anchoring and mooring issues, and operation and maintenance). This handbook provides developers, utilities, contractors, investors, regulators, and decision makers with practical guidelines on FPV projects. Most of the handbook focuses on technical aspects relating to developing and operating FPV projects; some sections focus...
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The electrification of health centers, schools, and other public institutions has been limited by the slow expansion of national grids, which has staggering consequences for economic growth, poverty reduction, and the accumulation of human capital. Off-grid solar solutions have enormous potential to address the problem, both in Sub-Saharan Africa and across the world, but simply purchasing and installing the units without providing for adequate maintenance is not effective. Installing stand-alone solar units and servicing them through long-term performance-based contracts can give public institutions the electricity service they need at a cost governments can afford.
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This report elucidates the role of financial innovation in the off-grid solar sector and provides a roadmap for practitioners, financiers, and entrepreneurs navigating capital raises for companies active in the sector. It examines a full range of established and frontier financing options. It illustrates that some technology-enabled financial innovations, such as peer-to-peer business lending, are already playing an important role in the sector. It was prepared by the World Bank Group and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, with support from ESMAP.
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A significant benefit of floating solar is that it doesn’t take up valuable space on land - meaning that it can be used for other purposes, such as farming or construction. Installing floating solar farms on bodies of water, such as reservoirs, avoids this issue. Hydropower reservoirs alone cover a surface of more than 250 thousand square kilometers worldwide - enough to host enough floating solar capacity to produce 2.5 times the electricity produced by all the underlying hydropower capacity. As the technology develops, the costs and technical challenges are expected to fall. Demand for floating solar power will also...
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Solar radiation is essentially a free resource available anywhere on Earth, to a greater or lesser extent. Solar PV power plants convert solar radiation into electricity. In the current era of global climate change, PV technology becomes an opportunity for countries and communities to transform or develop their energy infrastructure and step up their low-carbon energy transition. Until now, a global and harmonized assessment of country-level PV potential has not existed. This report aims to provide an aggregated and harmonized view on solar resource and PV power potential from the perspective of countries and regions, assuming a utility-scale installation of...
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This Terms of Reference (TOR) document was developed by the Energy Sector Energy Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), a global knowledge and technical assistance program administered by the World Bank (WB), under a multi-year program on Renewable Energy ResourceAssessment and Mapping that ran from October 2012 to June 2020. The TOR document is being made publicly available to facilitate future measurement campaigns that may be carried out by the World Bank Group, client governments, or other development partners.
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