[ad_1]
Floating photo voltaic panels within the Netherlands. Numerous main vitality corporations are trying into the potential of mixing floating photo voltaic with different vitality sources.
Mischa Keijser | Picture Supply | Getty Photos
German vitality agency RWE is to put money into a pilot undertaking centered across the deployment of floating photo voltaic expertise within the North Sea, as a part of a wider collaboration targeted on the event of “floating photo voltaic parks.”
Set to be put in in waters off Ostend, Belgium, the pilot, referred to as Merganser, may have a capability of 0.5 megawatt peak, or MWp. In a press release earlier this week, RWE mentioned Merganser can be Dutch-Norwegian agency SolarDuck’s first offshore pilot.
RWE mentioned Merganser would offer each itself and SolarDuck with “vital first-hand expertise in some of the difficult offshore environments on the earth.”
Learnings gleaned from the undertaking would enable for a faster commercialization of the expertise from 2023, it added.
RWE described SolarDuck’s system as being primarily based round a design enabling the photo voltaic panels to “float” meters above water and experience waves “like a carpet.”
A long run objective of the collaboration is for SolarDuck’s expertise for use in a much bigger demonstration undertaking on the but to be developed Hollandse Kust West offshore wind farm, which RWE is at present tendering for.
In its assertion, RWE mentioned the “integration of offshore floating photo voltaic into an offshore wind farm” was “a extra environment friendly use of ocean house for vitality technology.”
The thought of mixing wind and photo voltaic isn’t distinctive to RWE. The Hollandse Kust (noord) wind farm, which may even be positioned within the North Sea, can also be planning to deploy a floating photo voltaic expertise demonstration.
CrossWind, the consortium engaged on Hollandse Kust (noord), is a three way partnership between Eneco and Shell.
Earlier this month, Portuguese vitality agency EDP inaugurated a 5 MW floating photo voltaic park in Alqueva. It described the park, which consists of practically 12,000 photovoltaic panels, as “the biggest in Europe in a reservoir.”
The undertaking would allow solar energy and hydroelectric vitality from the dam at Alqueva to be mixed, EDP mentioned. There are additionally plans to put in a battery storage system.
All of the above tasks feed into the concept of “hybridization,” whereby totally different renewable vitality applied sciences and techniques are mixed on one web site.
In feedback printed final week, EDP CEO Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade mentioned that “the guess on hybridization, by combining electrical energy produced from water, solar, wind and storage” represented a “logical path of development.”
EDP would proceed to put money into hybridization as a result of it optimized assets and enabled the corporate to provide vitality that was cheaper, he added.
[ad_2]
Source link