Design and analysis of an innovative mooring system for stabilizing floating photovoltaic systems under water level variations

Floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems provide promising sustainable energy production and water resource conservation solutions. However, the lack of standardized strategies for mooring systems and the vulnerability of FPV installations to wave-induced movements and water level fluctuations, in different water bodies, are major challenges limiting their deployment. This paper proposes an innovative mooring system for FPV installations based on a counterweight and pulley mechanism. The proposed design is adaptable to unpredictable water-level variations while enhancing the stability of FPV platforms subjected to controlled water-surface disturbances and water-level variations representative of inland reservoirs and laboratory operating conditions. This study investigates the behavior of the proposed mooring mechanism in response to water-surface perturbation action and water level fluctuations. After carefully establishing the 3D model of the system using CATIA V5 software, a comparative analysis between the proposed mooring system and a conventional taut mooring system regarding the motion, stress, and contact pressure was performed using Abaqus/Explicit software and by employing the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) method. A significant improvement in floating platform stability has been highlighted by the main findings of the study, indicating a notable mitigation in horizontal displacements of 71.66% along the X-axis representing the longitudinal direction (Surge) and 65.65% along the Y-axis representing the transverse direction (Sway). In addition to the automatic height adjustment ability of the system, allowing automatic tracking of water-level variations at approximately 75% of the total water depth, it also demonstrates efficient energy absorption, maintaining low and constant stress on mooring lines. The stable and flexible behavior of this system and its resistance to dynamic loads make it a unique and innovative invention that will have a beneficial impact on the future of floating systems.