Abstract: Development of distributed photovoltaics are an important way to achieve the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality under the condition of land resources shortage. As an innovative distributed photovoltaic development method in recent years, photovoltaic on water has received extensive attention. Current policy has also made detailed regulations on the exploitation of photovoltaic on water project. This paper proposes a method for evaluating the potential of photovoltaic power generation on water based on remote sensing information,which aims to provide a new tool for scientific demonstration and accurate evaluation of photovoltaic power generation resources and project exploitation on water. Based on the open remote sensing image processing platform, this method obtains remote sensing images, calculates the water body index, determines the threshold value by the OTSU method and extracts the entire water body area. The area is reduced step by step according to various influencing factors using the mapping tool ArcMap. By dividing the water body into several grids, the area of the water body that can be installed with photovoltaics and the configurable installed capacity of photovoltaics in each grid are then calculated. Then, combined with the solar radiation data of typical meteorological years, the photovoltaic power generation potential on water is obtained. Finally, the potential of photovoltaic power generation on water under different development rates is calculated. As an example, this method is used to evaluate the potential of photovoltaic power generation on water of Jiangsu Province. The paper provides a technical means to evaluate the potential of photovoltaic power generation on water in the province.