Ocean Sun’s Membrane FPV System

• Ocean Sun’s Membrane Solar, inspired by Norway’s marine heritage, features hydro elastic membranes supported by HDPE buoyancy rings

• The system accommodates flat-mounted solar modules for direct cooling, with a wind loadbearing capacity of 280 km/h

• The FPV system supports a wide range of module types and can be configured for varying tide levels up to 7+ meters

• Ocean Sun’s design eliminates the need for nuts and bolts, providing a robust and flexible anchoring system rated for typhoon class 4 conditions.

Ocean Sun has provided data for one product called Membrane Solar, launched in 2016. The product design is inspired by Norway’s marine heritage and, as the name indicates, this FPV system uses large round hydro elastic membranes. The reinforced membranes are surrounded by a HDPE buoyancy ring, which also houses the inverters and AC combiners. A double keder is placed onto the thin polymer membrane for fixing the solar modules. It has to be noted that the Ocean Sun FPV system does not require any nuts and bolts. The company has provided the data for a product that measures 75 m in diameter, while the company is also promoting a smaller 50 m version. While the latter can accommodate 280 kW of solar modules, the larger 75 m floater comes with 650 kW.

Solar membrane supports glass-glass and POE encapsulated modules from several top-tier manufacturers based on any cell technology. The modules are flat mounted on the floater for direct cooling through membrane. Ocean Sun’s product has 100% water coverage. It has a wind load bearing capacity of 280 km/h. The floater is designed for tides of up to 1 m, but the company is ready to support higher tides of either 2 to 3 m or 7 to 7+ m as options. The mooring system, including mooring rope, bridle lines, shackles, and chains, is designed according to the NS 9415 standard and rated for waves and typhoon class 4 with 270 km/h wind speeds (See Ocean Sun Commissions EU-Backed Offshore PV Project).

Several of such floaters are anchored side by side to form an FPV system. The anchoring system is designed by taking into consideration the local water depth, wave, current, and wind conditions into consideration. The system has a tolerance for changes in the water level of up to 50 m. Ocean Sun’s Solar Membrane, certified to be used on drinking water, comes with a long warranty time of 20 years.

The text is an excerpt from the TaiyangNews Floating PV 2024 Report, which can be downloaded for free here.