Floating solar farms could be significantly more efficient than solar farms on land thanks to the natural cooling effects of seawater, according to new findings from a comparative study conducted by researchers from the National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT) in Taiwan. The floating solar panels used in the study produced 12 percent more energy than the on-land models, with potentially huge implications for global energy security and decarbonization pathways.
The study, published this month in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, compared the life cycles of an offshore floating photovoltaic (OFPV) in the waters off of Taiwan to a solar farm on the island. The study found that the OFPV system generated about 12 percent more energy in its lifetime thanks to the natural cooling effects of the seawater, which increased the system’s efficiency. Moreover, it found that OFPV also enhanced emission reductions.
“Because of this higher energy output, they also achieve greater carbon emission reductions,” study co-author Ching-Feng Chen, PhD, was recently quoted by Interesting Engineering. “In simple terms, even though both systems use similar technology, placing solar panels on water can make them more effective,” Chen went on to say.
This could have enormous implications for Taiwan, which is currently experiencing an existential energy crisis. Taiwan’s energy grid is totally isolated and strained, supporting a population of 23 million as well as an enormous and energy-intensive tech manufacturing sector with extremely limited land and energy resources. On top of that, Taiwan’s energy sector also faces major security threats from China and is simultaneously being battered by a still-unfolding energy crisis driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
At present, Taiwan is 99 percent dependent on imported natural gas. This renders the island extremely vulnerable to the kind of market shocks we’re seeing now due to the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. Asian markets have been hit extremely hard by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and Taiwan is no exception – in 2025 about one-third of the island’s liquefied natural gas imports came through the Strait. “For a country where gas-fired plants generate around half of all electricity, this is a direct hit to the fuel that was supposed to make Taiwan’s power system cleaner, flexible and secure,” Oilprice reported last week.
Taiwan desperately needs to update and diversify its energy mix, but the country’s small size and high population density pose major challenges for building out utility-scale clean energy resources. Solar and wind farms take up a lot of space, and Taiwan simply doesn’t have the land to spare. But what Taiwan does have a lot of is coastline. Offshore solar could therefore offer a lifeline to the island’s beleaguered energy sector.
As land-use conflicts surrounding renewable energy become more commonplace and more intense around the world, OFPV could offer a win-win for energy security as well as national security, within and beyond Taiwan. The potential advantages of the NTUT study extend to many other countries with similar land and population constraints.
“From a broader perspective, our work shows that offshore floating solar is not just a technical alternative but a strategic solution for other countries with limited land resources that can help expand their renewable energy capacity while still meeting environmental and land-use constraints,” Chen elaborated in a press release accompanying the study.
In fact, the idea of offshore solar as a lifeline for “population hotspots” is not a new one. In 2023, World Energy suggested that “vast arrays of solar panels floating on calm seas near the Equator could provide effectively unlimited solar energy to densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa.” The discovery that such solar panels can be even more productive than on-land models is just the cherry on top of this land-use issue.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
