floating

Researchers in China have conducted a numerical study on the wind sensitivity of offshore floating solar plants. They have tested six row-arrangements of panels and have found an optimal system configuration that is reportedly less sensitive to wind direction.

State-owned Kenyan Electricity Generating Company PLC (KenGen) is accepting feasibility study applications for the development of a 40 MW floating PV array, backed by German funding.

France’s Nepsen has completed the first floating solar project in Armenia. The 150 kW array, which is installed on Lake Yerevan, will serve as a pilot for future floating PV plants in the country.

Acen, a unit of Ayala Group, says it plans to develop 1 GW of floating solar on the largest freshwater lake in the Philippines.

The SeaVolt consortium says it will launch an offshore floating PV demonstrator off the Belgian port of Ostend. The main companies – Tractebel, DEME, Equans and Jan De Nul – say the anchored floating array will collect data for at least a year to scale up the tech.

Tata Power’s engineering, procurement and construction unit has commissioned a 101.6 MWp floating solar project in the Indian state of Kerala.

Portuguese utility EDP has won the largest project in Portugal’s latest procurement exercise. It has agreed to pay –€4(–$4.39)/MWh for a 15-year contract, but with a 30-year grid connection for the floating array and other renewables projects.

Operated by Czech utility CEZ Group, the pilot solar plant will be located at different heights during the charge and recharge cycles of a pumped-hydro plant and the difference in height may reach up to nine meters.

Developers have until September 30 to lodge their interest to install grid-connected floating solar plants on the water reservoir surface at Salaulim, Amthanem, Anjunem, and Chapoli Dams in the Indian state of Goa. Their scope of work also includes assessing the floating solar potential at each of these locations.

Scientists in the Netherlands conducted a feasibility study for adding floating solar to a planned 752 MW offshore wind installation in the North Sea. The study finds that the two could realistically share a single connection to an onshore grid, with minimal curtailment as well as technical and economic benefits for both technologies.