Floating solar panels in the Netherlands. Several major energy firms are looking at the possibility of combining floating solar with other energy sources.
Misha Keizer | Image Source | Getty Images
german energy firm RWE It aims to invest in a pilot project centered around the deployment of floating solar technology in the North Sea, as part of a broader collaboration focused on the development of a “floating solar park”.
Set to be installed in the waters off Ostend, Belgium, the pilot, called Mergensor, will have a capacity of 0.5 MW peak, or MWp. In a statement earlier this week, RWE said Mergensor will be the first offshore pilot of Dutch-Norwegian firm SolarDuck.
RWE said Merganser will provide both itself and SolarDuck “significant first-hand experience in one of the world’s most challenging offshore environments.”
It added that the learnings from the project will allow for accelerated commercialization of the technology from 2023.
RWE described SolarDuck’s system as being based on a design that enables the solar panels to “float” meters above the water and ride the waves “like a carpet”.
A long-term goal of the collaboration is to use SolarDuck’s technology in a large demonstration project at the yet to be developed Hollands Kast West offshore wind farm, for which RWE is currently tendering.
In its statement, RWE said that “integration of offshore floating solar into an offshore wind farm” was “a more efficient use of ocean space for energy generation”.
The idea of combining wind and solar is not unique to RWE. Hollands Kust (Nord) wind farm, which will also be located in the North Sea, Also plans to deploy a floating solar technology demonstration.
Crosswind is a joint venture between Enco and the consortium working on Holland’s CAST (NOORD). oysters,
Earlier this month, the Portuguese energy firm EDP Inaugurated 5 MW Floating Solar Park at Alkewa. It described the park, which contains about 12,000 photovoltaic panels, as “the largest in Europe in a single reservoir.”
EDP said the project would be able to connect solar power and hydroelectric power from the dam at Alqueva. There are also plans to install a battery storage system.
All of the above projects embody the idea of ”hybridization”, whereby different renewable energy technologies and systems are combined on a single site.
In comments published last week, EDP CEO Miguel Stillwell de Andrade said that “bets on hybridization by combining water, sun, wind and electricity produced from storage” represented a “logical path of development”.
He added that EDP would continue to invest in hybridisation as it optimized resources and enabled the company to produce cheaper energy.