Norwegian company Ocean Sun has started making design improvements to its floating solar units, based on the insights gained through real sea demonstration of the technology linked with offshore wind turbine in China.
Ocean Sun said it retrieved one of its floating solar units in late April 2023 from the pilot project in Haiyang in China, where the two floating solar units were integrated with offshore wind turbine and put into operation, marking the world’s first such development.
The project, owned by Chinese state-owned enterprise State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) , featured two floating solar units with a total installed capacity of 500kWp and an offshore wind turbine at a site located 30 km off the coast of China’s Shandong Province in the Yellow Sea.
Owned by SPIC, and constructed by Sunneng Technology , the offshore solar system started commercial operations on October 31, 2022, after a two-week construction period.
According to Ocean Energy, the second floating solar unit is also expected to be retrieved soon. The company plans to prepare an updated, larger single unit, for further sea trials within the year.
Ocean Sun said it expects to make design improvements to its technology, based on the insights gained through demonstration in the Yellow Sea, which represented the most challenging waters for the company’s floaters so far.