SPIC & Ocean Sun’s Offshore Wind+Solar Project Online

• SPIC and Ocean Sun have commissioned a pilot offshore wind and floating solar power plant in China
• The floating solar plant designed by Ocean Sun has a capacity of 500 kW and is connected to SPIC's wind turbine
• The duo plans to use its learnings from this pilot to build a 20 MW floating wind and solar power plant in 2023

The world's '1^st' commercial offshore floating solar PV power plant with 500 kW capacity, connected to wind turbines has started generating electricity off Shandong's coast in China, announced China's State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) and Norway's Ocean Sun.

The Norwegian company has designed the floating solar plant using its patented technology. Two floaters with combined 500 kW capacity are connected to the transformer on a SPIC-owned wind turbine and then connected to the power grid through a submarine cable of the wind farm.

Located on the south side of Haiyang city in Shandong, it is 30 kms offshore with a water depth of 30 meters. The floaters combine 770 PV modules from GCL Corporation covering an area equivalent to 4 standard basketball courts.

Floaters are anchored to the seabed with 4 mooring points and 12 cables, at a distance of 60 meters from the wind turbines.

The demonstration project will help the partners assess the wind and wave resistance of the facility and its associated components as floaters, anchoring, etc. They have factored in the extreme wave height of 10 meters for the modules to withstand. Cooling effect of water for solar modules is expected to help improve power generation efficiency by over 10%.

This is currently a pilot and after full technical and economic demonstration, the project partners plan to use the same technology to build a 20 MW floating wind and solar power plant in 2023.

Ocean Sun says its successful implementation will unlock the potential of hybrid offshore power plants thus greatly increasing efficiency and reducing LCOE.

"This is a true milestone for Ocean Sun, and for the floating solar industry," said Ocean Sun CEO and Founder, Dr. Børge Bjørneklett. "The successful project funded by SPIC and constructed using the Ocean Sun solution shows how the common goal of reducing greenhouse CO2 emissions will be achieved with development across borders."

Ocean Sun signed an agreement to provide its technology for this project in July 2022 and calls it the company's maiden fully offshore installation and the 1^st offshore wind and solar hybrid project utilizing SPIC's existing power infrastructure.

"Shandong Province is projecting 42 GWp floating solar installations in the next few years, and Ocean Sun will now be a contender for parts of this volume," stated Bjørneklett back then.