Floating solar energy installations are on the rise. With Norway’s extensive experience and history from the maritime, offshore, and energy industries, the country is well equipped to lead technological development in this floating solar segment.
Solar Floating Energy
Energy consultancy giant DNV GL has given its seal of approval to an innovative large-scale solar floating energy 'membrane' being developed by Norway’s Ocean Sun, as the design heads for its first full-scale installation as part of a project on hydropower in Albania.
Smart Blue Innovation
It is being engineered for operations in coastal waters and on human-made reservoirs. The Ocean Sun system uses modified silicon PV modules mounted on a flexible hydro-elastic floating membrane, thus creating a solar energy producing 'powerhouse.'
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DNV GL’s so-called 'conformity statement' – which verifies the design methodology of the solar floating energy structure and ensures it complies with various standards and recommended practices, including in this case for Norwegian aquaculture – clears the way for a technology qualification process involving review of the Open Sun concept’s solar energy production, PV cells, electrical system, and membrane.
Solar Floating Energy: 5 Systems
The Norwegian outfit has already built five systems, the oldest of which nearly three ago, of a range of sizes totaling 300kW. Still, the 2MW project at the Banja Dam, operated by compatriot utility Statkraft, is by far the biggest and will help further accelerate one of the world’s fastest-emerging renewables sectors.
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Hydropower operators have extensive plans to invest in solar floating energy solar solutions in their human-made reservoirs and hook it up to their already existing grid connections. Still, they need to be sure that the floating solar structure is sustainable, durable and safe. This verification by DNV GL is a vital first step in demonstrating Ocean Sun’s readiness for deploying robust floating solar solutions.
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Blue Innovations: DNV GL
DNV GL is an internationally accredited registrar and classification society headquartered in Høvik, Norway. The company currently has about 14,500 employees and 350 offices operating in more than 100 countries. It provides services for several industries, including maritime, renewable energy, oil & gas, electrification, food & beverage, and healthcare. It was created in 2013 as a result of a merger between two leading organizations in the field, Det Norske Veritas (Norway) and Germanischer Lloyd (Germany).
DNV GL is the world's largest classification society, providing services for 13,175 vessels and mobile offshore units (MOUs) amounting to 265.4 million gt, which represents a global market share of 21%. It is also the largest technical consultancy and supervisory to the universal renewable energy (particularly wind, wave, tidal and solar) and oil and gas industry, 65% of the world's offshore pipelines are designed and installed to DNV GL's technical standards.
Solar Energy
Developing and expanding floating solar power opens tremendous new opportunities in providing the world with sufficient renewable blue energy. The conformity statement is the first of its kind and was issued following a thorough verification process, which sets the standard for the expansion of floating solar globally and opens opportunities to scale up solar energy production around the world.
A World Bank report on floating solar concluded the potential of the technology even under conservative assumptions to be 400GW. With coastal and open-sea build-out, the market would be enormous.
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Though floating solar remains an emerging technology, in-land arrays are being seen as an increasingly attractive option for large-scale PV deployment on reservoirs and alongside hydropower facilities, especially where land is limited.
The largest such project currently is a 150MW development in Anhui, China, but, as Recharge has reported, that is soon set to be overshadowed by massive events elsewhere in the world, including a 1GW plant in India and a sprawling 2.9GW complex off South Korea.
The world's most enormous floating solar array outside China is BayWa’s 27.4MW Bomhofsplas project in the Netherlands.
Photo by: BayWa r.e. renewable energy GmbH. Having completed three floating PV projects with 25 MW cumulative capacity in the Netherlands, BayWa is now constructing the 27.4 MW Bomhofsplas Floating Solar Farm in the country.
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