Tractebel, DEME and Jan De Nul will commission a floating solar power pilot plant off the coast of Belgium in the summer. Seavolt’s floating platform is said to withstand difficult offshore conditions.
The group, which also includes Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering NV (DEME), maritime offshore specialist Jan De Nul and Ghent University, plans to deploy its first demonstrator off the Belgian coast in summer 2023.
The floating platform called Seavolt is said to be able to withstand difficult offshore conditions.
“The modular design allows for easy adaptation to different locations and requirements,” the consortium said in a statement, without providing further technical details. “The benefits are the local production of renewable energy and the possibility to install the panels in offshore wind farms. Another advantage is the addition of large renewable energy capacities in a relatively short time.
Tractebel is also working on another offshore solar project in the North Sea. The group includes DEME, solar installer Soltech NV and Ghent University, and plans to install a €2m system near an aquaculture farm and an offshore wind project.
In a study published in 2020, researchers from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands argued that offshore electric power plants could be more productive than land-based systems after running a simulation comparing the North Sea project with a conventional system at the Utrecht Solar Test Field.
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