2025 Essay Contest Finalist

Entry by Regina Chae

We’re finally pivoting away from fossil fuels. Floating solar is one of the most elegant and promising solutions we have for that shift to renewable energy. Floating solar are solar panels mounted on a structure that floats in water. By floating in water in this way, it offers clean energy for countries with limited land and improves energy efficiency.

These solar panels don’t use land space at all. So countries like Singapore, Japan, or even parts of Europe with abundant water can access needed clean energy. It also reduces ground competition for agriculture, housing, and solar infrastructure by using otherwise unused bodies of water. Smaller countries use land for farming or building, so with the addition of floating solar, they have space for food alongside clean energy. Beyond its effectiveness, this is great for propagation of clean energy in general, since there are fewer restrictions on where it must be implemented.

With their efficient designs, the structures of floating solar panels help conserve water in drought-prone areas by limiting evaporation from reservoirs and water treatment ponds. Also, because these structures help reduce water temperature, they maintain high dissolved oxygen levels in the water, improving water quality by reducing harmful algal bloom.

In the future, floating solars can be paired with aquaculture, combining renewable energy with fish farming or irrigation control. Or it could power coastal plants and desalination plants without competing for land. By being integrated with offshore wind or wave energy, we can gain continuous energy generation.

Solar energy may seem like a well-known example of renewable energy, but with the innovations of floating solar, many of the assumed faults are now entirely resolved. This could be a substantial part of our energy future!