Europe’s largest offshore solar array secures funding

A consortium of 15 partners, including SolarDuck, DMEC and RWE, have been awarded funding for Europe’s largest offshore floating solar demonstration project to date.

The €8.4m Nautical Sunrise project, supported with €6.8m of the Horizon Europe programme, kicked off in December 2023 to execute research and development on offshore floating solar (OFS) systems and its components.

The proposed ‘solar park’ has been deemed relatively simple to set up as the technology utilises the existing cabling in situ for the wind turbines.

The outcomes of the project will enable the large-scale deployment and commercialisation of OFS systems in the future, both as standalone systems and integrated into offshore wind farms.

This project aims to design, build, and showcase a 5 MW offshore floating solar system using the modular solution of Dutch floating solar company SolarDuck. With RWE providing the investment for the installation and deployment, the system is planned to be electrically integrated, certified, and located within RWE’s OranjeWind (Hollandse Kust West VII) wind farm off the west coast of the Netherlands.

Before the offshore deployment, the Nautical Sunrise consortium will conduct research and testing to ensure the reliability, survivability, electrical stability, and yield of offshore floating solar systems. The consortium will create a scale-up plan that will address the challenges and create opportunities to drive forward the commercialisation of offshore floating solar systems, and assess the environmental footprint, circularity, and full life cycle sustainability of such systems.

This assessment will not only cover the demonstrator project but also include multiple GW-scale commercial projects.

“This subsidy allows SolarDuck with its partners to push the environmental boundary of the design and at the same time get an in-depth understanding of the ecological and reliability of the design,” says SolarDuck’s CTO Don Hoogendoorn.

DMEC CTO Simon Stark adds: “We are excited to coordinate the Nautical Sunrise project as one of the flagship initiatives of offshore solar in Europe. Not only do we have the chance to address important knowledge gaps around the design and environmental impact of offshore solar.

“Together with RWE and the OranjeWind consortium, we can do so in full alignment and integration with a commercial offshore wind park.”