Posters
Come meet the poster presenters to ask them questions and discuss their work
We would like to invite you to come and see the posters at our upcoming conference. The posters will showcase a diverse range of research topics, and will give delegates an opportunity to engage with the authors and learn more about their work. Whether you are a seasoned researcher or simply curious about the latest developments in your field, we believe that the posters will offer something of interest to everyone. So please join us at the conference and take advantage of this opportunity to learn and engage with your peers in the academic community. We look forward to seeing you there!
PO138: Harvesting the power of the sun to improve the production of renewable energy offshore: challenges and perspectives from a floating solar demonstrator project offshore the coast of Belgium
Mert ÇANDARLI, Business Development & Sales Manager Offshore, Tractebel
Abstract
The offshore wind industry is going through unprecedented challenges. Increased capital costs and constrained supply chain are posing significant threats to the development of new offshore wind farms. Yet, additional capacities are needed fast to meet the world ambitious net-zero goal. In this context, floating solar technologies are believed to be an attractive solution to fast track additional capacities offshore at a reasonable cost. This is especially true when solar technologies are deployed over existing offshore wind farms (so called "hybrid" model): * Accelerated permitting and consenting processes * Better used of the ocean space between the turbines * No or little need for additional site characterization (re-use of already collected data) limiting upfront costs for surveys and accelerating the design * Limited CAPEX for energy transmission (e.g. spare capacity of existing subsea cables can be used, limiting the need for new cables) * Reduced OPEX via synergies (shared costs) for the maintenance of the wind turbines/solar panels * More balanced production profiles due the complementary nature of wind and solar integration While the solar technology is well proven on land (including floating solar on lakes), its application in offshore environments is still not well understood. To address some of the challenges related to the deployment of floating solar technologies at sea, the author's company (Tractebel) and its partners (Jan De Nul and Deme) have started a demonstrator project. The project involves a prototype floater equipped with solar panels (and associated instrumentations) deployed offshore the Belgium coast. The proposed paper/presentation will present some of the key findings from the demonstrator project, highlight technical challenges for the deployment of solar technologies offshore and provide an outlook for the deployment of offshore solar technologies at a commercial scale.
