Floating solar (FPV) industry
Joint Industry Project
DNV is looking for additional partners to join two new joint industry projects (JIPs) to drive forward the developments in floating solar photovoltaic systems (FPVs).
It is estimated that the total global potential capacity for deploying floating solar power on manmade, inland waters alone could be as high as 4 TW with an expected pipeline of more than 10 GW by 2025.
While FPV is a promising growing industry, there are a number of complexities associated with the installation of floating solar plants, especially related to anchoring and mooring systems and to the floating structures (“floats”).
Objective
The objective of these two new JIPs is to issue standards to guide the industry, help scale projects, and increase confidence in FPV technology.
The first JIP will focus on writing a design standard for anchoring and mooring systems of FPV projects and the second JIP will investigate writing a testing and qualification standard for floats of FPV projects. The two resulting standards are meant to be used together to provide a framework for verification and certification.
These JIPs follow the recently issued DNV Recommended Practice DNV-RP-0584Design, development and operation of floating solar photovoltaic systems - the world’s first recommended practice for floating solar power plants. DNV-RP-0584 was also issued as a result of a joint industry project with FPV stakeholders.
Why
By 2050, DNV predicts that floating offshore wind will generate 264 GW or 15% of all offshore wind energy. Likewise, floating solar has a bright future, with up to 30 GW expected by 2030. The technology offers great potential for green energy production, particularly in areas where there is a shortage of available land for large photovoltaic plants.
The time to move FPV forward is now and by joining these JIP’s the results enable trust and confidence in the technology and scaling to contribute to net-zero goals.
Participation
DNV has already hosted on the 30th June the preliminary kick-off for boths JIP initiatives, with the companies that confirmed participation. However, a call for more interested partners remains open, and we welcome more companies spanning various interests (operators, designers, manufacturers, contractors, regulators, universities and research institutes) to join the joint industry projects to increase its reach and the quality of the final result.
We plan to carry out the JIP over a period of 18 months.
Partners in the JIP will participate in scoping workshops, receive early access to knowledge gained, and have insight to the revised design provisions.
Current participants to the Anchoring and Mooring JIP:
- ACEN
- BayWa r.e. AG
- BlueC Engineering
- EDP
- Equinor
- Fred. Olsen 1848
- Iberdrola
- Moss Maritime
- Oceans of Energy
- Scotra
- Seaflex
- SolarDuck
- Sungrow Floating
- Xfloat
- Urbasolar
- Ocean Sun.
- BayWa r.e. AG
- Equinor
- Iberdrola
- Isigenere
- Oceans of Energy
- Ocean Sun
- RWE
- Scotra
- Sungrow Floating
- Xfloat
- Zimmermann PV.