Technology
Belgium's North Sea Coast Welcomes Offshore Floating PV Demonstrator
He SeaVolt consortium is preparing to deploy an offshore floating PV demonstrator off the coast of Ostend in Belgium. The major companies involved, including Tractebel, DEME, Equans, and Jan De Nul, have announced that this anchored floating array will gather data for at least a year to support the scaling up of this technology.
A Belgian consortium, which includes the Tractebel engineering subsidiary of Engie from France, is gearing up to activate a pilot floating PV project in the waters near the port of Ostend on the Belgian North Sea coast. The group comprises Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering NV (DEME), marine offshore specialist Jan De Nul, and Ghent University. Equans, the project's primary contractor, is currently in the final assembly phase.
The consortium has constructed the floater for the array using a lightweight carbon fiber material of unspecified type, which offers potential advantages for offshore applications, even though it is not commonly used in harsh marine environments. Optical embedded fibers and sensors affixed to the structure will assess whether the material's structural integrity, including its response to vibrations and fatigue, aligns with the numerical models and results obtained from ocean wave tank and wind tunnel tests.
With the support of Ghent University, the consortium aims to collect data from the floating plant for one year to drive the advancement of large-scale offshore photovoltaic projects. The consortium has emphasized the importance of minimizing the attachment of excessive marine growth to the floater for maintaining its buoyancy. Specific tests will be conducted to explore combining the floater systems with mussel cultivation and oyster farming, which present unique challenges.
The project will focus on collecting data related to the impact of waves, rain, and salt spray on various solar module technologies with different configurations. The companies also intend to evaluate the effects of varying angles of inclination caused by waves and wind on energy yield. Furthermore, they will assess the effectiveness of necessary protective measures for the solar modules against seawater and bird droppings.
Tractebel is also conducting tests for another offshore solar project in the North Sea, working alongside DEME, solar installer Soltech NV, and Ghent University. This €2 million ($2.2 million) array has been installed near an aquaculture farm and offshore wind project.
There are high expectations for this new application. The combination of offshore PV with wind farms in deep-sea locations could leverage multiple sites and existing infrastructure for electricity generation. In a study published in 2020, scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands suggested that offshore PV plants could be more productive than ground-mounted arrays, following a simulation comparing a North Sea project to a conventional system at the Utrecht Photovoltaic Outdoor Test field. The Dutch government has announced plans to commission 3 GW of offshore PV by 2030.
