A 500kW floating PV plant, the empirical project for a larger 20MW offshore floating PV plant integrated within the Bandaonan No. 3 offshore wind farm undertaken by SPIC in east China’s Shandong Province, began generating electricity at 15:18 on October 31, marking the birth of the world’s first ever empirical floating PV project linked with a wind farm.

Located on waters south of Haiyang, Shandong, the project is 30km from shore above 30m-deep water. The 500kW floating PV array consists of two annular floating units each with an installed capacity of 250kW comprising annular anti-wave floaters, high-intensity membranes resistant to marine environment, and PV systems. Altogether 770 PV modules are installed on the floating units measuring 53m in diameter and as large as four standard basketball courts. Clean electricity generated from the units flows through the inverter to the Bandaonan No. 3 wind farm operating at the same site before being transmitted to the grid via the offshore step-up substation. The empirical project has verified the anti-wave capability and marine environment resistance of the floating units, anchors, and PV modules, proving the technical feasibility of connecting a floating hybrid wind and PV power project to the grid.

Unlike current PV plants in sheltered or inshore sea areas, the empirical offshore floating PV project is the first in the world that’s 30km away from coast, above 30m-deep water, and subject to 10m-high extreme waves. It adopts the patented elastic membrane technology and anchoring system designed by Norway’s Ocean Sun and the marine environment-resistant PV modules tailored by Golden Concord Limited (Group) Holdings Co., Ltd. (GCL Group). Co-built by Beijing Xunneng Technology Co., Ltd. and Tianjin Port and Waterway Engineering Co., Ltd., the project effectively reduces the cost of engineering, construction, operation and maintenance by linking wind and PV power generation. It has explored a path to scale up, commercialize, and standardize offshore PV project in the future for better value alignment along the industry chain.

According to the project chief, the annular anti-wave floaters are pre-fabricated with high density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes that are 0.6m-0.8m in height, which are anchored to the seabed with 12 cables at 4 mooring spots and kept more than 60m safely away from the nearest wind turbine. Supported by the floater is a new type of platform that uses customized PV modules – depending on the situation at sea – to lessen the impacts from waves on PV panels. The PV modules are connected with pre-made sliding rails with the elastic membrane, through which they are in direct contact with seawater, the cooling effect of which can improve the efficiency of PV power generation by more than 10%.