Abstract:
South African project engineers recently pioneered the first agricultural floating solar photovoltaic tech nology systems in the Western Cape wine region. This effort prepared our country for an imminent large scale diffusion of this exciting new climate solver technology. However, hydro-embedded photovoltaic sys tems interact with environmentally sensitive underlying aquatic ecosystems, causing multiple project as sessment uncertainties (energy, land, air, water) compared to ground-mounted photovoltaics. The dissimi lar behaviour of floatovoltaic technologies delivers a broader and more diversified range of technical advan tages, environmental offset benefits, and economic co-benefits, causing analytical modelling imperfections
and tooling mismatches in conventional analytical project assessment techniques. As a universal interna tional real-world problem of significance, the literature review identified critical knowledge and methodology
gaps as the primary causes of modelling deficiencies and assessment uncertainties. By following a design thinking methodology, the thesis views the sustainability assessment and modelling problem through a geo graphical information systems lens, thus seeing an academic research opportunity to fill critical knowledge
gaps through new theory formulation and geographical knowledge creation. To this end, this philosophi cal investigation proposes a novel object-oriented systems-thinking and climate modelling methodology to
study the real-world geospatial behaviour of functioning floatovoltaic systems from a dynamical system thinking perspective. As an empirical feedback-driven object-process methodology, it inspired the thesis to
create new knowledge by postulating a new multi-disciplinary sustainability theory to holistically characterise
agricultural floatovoltaic projects through ecosystems-based quantitative sustainability profiling criteria. The
study breaks new ground at the frontiers of energy geo-informatics by conceptualising a holistic theoretical
framework designed for the theoretical characterisation of floatovoltaic technology ecosystem operations
in terms of the technical energy, environmental and economic (3E) domain responses. It campaigns for a
fully coupled model in ensemble analysis that advances the state-of-the-art by appropriating the 3E theo retical framework as underpinning computer program logic blueprint to synthesise the posited theory in a
digital twin simulation. Driven by real-world geo-sensor data, this geospatial digital twin can mimic the geo dynamical behaviour of floatovoltaics through discrete-time computer simulations in real-time and lifetime
digital project enactment exercises. The results show that the theoretical 3E framing enables project due
diligence and environmental impact assessment reporting as it uniquely incorporates balanced scorecard
performance metrics, such as the water-energy-land-food resource impacts, environmental offset benefits
and financial feasibility of floatovoltaics. Embedded in a geoinformatics decision-support platform, the 3E
theory, framework and model enable numerical project decision-supporting through an analytical hierarchy
process. The experimental results obtained with the digital twin model and decision support system show
that the desktop-based parametric floatovoltaic synthesis toolset can uniquely characterise the broad and
diverse spectrum of performance benefits of floatovoltaics in a 3E sustainability profile. The model uniquely
predicts important impact aspects of the technology’s land, air and water preservation qualities, quantifying
these impacts in terms of the water, energy, land and food nexus parameters. The proposed GIS model
can quantitatively predict most FPV technology unknowns, thus solving a contemporary real-world prob lem that currently jeopardises floating PV project licensing and approvals. Overall, the posited theoretical
framework, methodology model, and reported results provide an improved understanding of floating PV renewable energy systems and their real-world behaviour. Amidst a rapidly growing international interest in
floatovoltaic solutions, the research advances fresh philosophical ideas with novel theoretical principles that
may have far-reaching implications for developing electronic, photovoltaic performance models worldwide.
