Ocean Sun gets government grant to advance floating solar technology

Norwegian company Ocean Sun has received a grant from the Research Council of Norway to further develop its floating solar technology.

Ocean Sun secured a grant together with Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) for a joint project that has been supported with a share of NOK 81 million (€7.1 million), provided by the Research Council of Norway for ten projects that focus on environmentally friendly energy development.

Namely, the partners have secured a grant of NOK 4.2 million (€400,000), that will be used for a project expected to improve yield, lifetime and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for floating solar plants.

“We are looking forward to continue our cooperation with IFE in developing and improving floating photovoltaic (FPV) technology,” Ocean Power said in a statement.

Ocean Sun has developed a patented solution for a floating power system with solar panels mounted on a thin hydro-elastic membrane.

The company has already installed and demonstrated systems at various locations with different environmental conditions, including Norway, Albania, the Philippines, Singapore, and China.

To the project in China, Ocean Sun provided its floating solar technology that has been integrated with offshore wind turbine.

The project, deemed the world’s first, has been put into operation earlier in 2022 at a site located 30 km off the coast of Hayiang, in China’s Shandong Province.

The two floating solar units, with installed capacity of 0.5MWp, are connected to the transformer on a State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC)-owned wind turbine and then linked to the power grid through the subsea cable of the wind farm.

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