Nautical SUNRISE Project: Advancing Research and Development for the World’s Largest Offshore Floating Solar Power Plan
The largest offshore floating solar (OFS) power installation in the world is being supported by the ambitious Nautical SUNRISE project, which has the potential to completely transform the renewable energy industry.
This initiative, which started in December 2023 and has a budget of €8.4 million—of which €6.8 million comes from the Horizon Europe program—focuses on research and development for offshore floating solar systems and their components.
The project’s goal is to make it easier for OFS systems to be widely deployed and commercialized, both on their own and as integrated parts of offshore wind farms.
Using the modular solution provided by Dutch floating solar startup SolarDuck, a key component of the project is designing, building, and exhibiting a 5 MW offshore floating solar system.
This system is planned to be electrically integrated, certified, and installed within RWE’s OranjeWind (Hollandse Kust West VII) wind farm, which is situated off the coast of The Netherlands.
RWE is a major investor in this project and will supervise its installation and deployment.
Before the offshore deployment phase, the Nautical SUNRISE consortium will conduct extensive research and testing to ensure the reliability, survivability, electrical stability, and yield of offshore floating solar systems.
A comprehensive scale-up plan will address challenges and identify opportunities to drive the commercialization of offshore floating solar systems forward.
Nautical SUNRISE is dedicated to sustainability, and as such, it will evaluate aspects like environmental footprint, circularity, and complete lifecycle sustainability in order to determine the environmental impact and sustainability of OFS.
The evaluation will cover several GW-scale commercial projects in addition to the demonstrator project, guaranteeing a comprehensive comprehension of the ecological consequences of the technology.
The Nautical SUNRISE collaboration wants to be a pioneer in the offshore renewable energy industry, bringing forth a more sustainable future for future generations.
Don Hoogendoorn, CTO of SolarDuck, provided commentary on the project and expressed gratitude for the grant, highlighting its contribution to expanding the design’s environmental bounds and improving comprehension of its ecological and dependability features.
Similarly, DMEC CTO Simon Stark emphasized the alignment with commercial offshore wind farms and the project’s importance in solving knowledge gaps and environmental implications of offshore solar.
Partnerships such as the Dutch Marine Energy Centre (DMEC), RWE, SolarDuck, Blunova, Bridon-Bekaert the Ropes Group, Deltares, Hasselt University (UHasselt), KU Leuven, Oxford PV, SINTEF Industry, SINTEF Ocean, The Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC-CERCA), INESC TEC, and WavEC Offshore Renewables enable the Nautical SUNRISE project to succeed.
Source Nautical
