Abstract
The focus of the installation of photovoltaic systems has shifted to unconventional locations such as water bodies to prioritize the available dryland for residential and agricultural usage. The wetlands cover 6–9 % of the earth’s surface and are globally protected under various regulations to avoid exploitation and excessive disturbance to their natural state. However, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (WCA) 1989, allows the use of wetlands in a parcel for the construction of bridges, walkways, electric poles, or piles if they cause disturbance of up to 20 % to the wetland. In this study, a techno-economic analysis has been performed for the installation of a ground mount photovoltaic system on two different sites with major wetland proponents, while incorporating wetland and surrounding dryland. The designs are focused on minimum disturbance of the wetland and its ecological system. The technical performance of all designs has been simulated on PVSyst software to obtain the estimated annual energy generation over 25 years, along with system losses. The final designs selected for each site have a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of $87/MWh and high energy generation of more than 2 GWh/yr, with an installation cost of $ 2.3 million.
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