Feasibility of coupling pv system with long-distance water transfer: A case study of china's “South-to-North water diversion”

To nationally optimize limited water resources, the Chinese government has had to build several nationwide long-distance water transfer channels. These channels have placed tremendous pressure on land resources, and some require large quantities of electrical energy to lift the water to a higher altitude. Within this context, this study attempts to make full use of local solar energy resource and upper space of water channel to construct an on-channel photovoltaic (PV) system. Based on-site data and PVsyst model, this study took the central line of the “South-to-North water diversion” project as an example to examine the technical and economic feasibility of the proposed on-channel PV system under two alternative scenarios. The major results indicated that the initial investment would be 3,733 million Yuan under the scenario 1, with an expected annual electricity output of 659 GWh; while under the scenario 2, the number of initial investments would increase to 18.665 billion Yuan with an expected electricity output of 3.295 billion kWh. Moreover, carbon balance analysis demonstrated that the rate of carbon emission reduction can reach as much as 98.45% comparing to the baseline case. Overall, the proposed on-channel PV system will bring good benefits both economically and environmentally and should be worthy of promoting in future.