1 MW offshore solar off the coast of Scheveningen

Oceans of Energy and its partners and observers have announced the upscaling of the world's first offshore solar farm system by a factor of 20 to 1 MW (MegaWatt). In the coming years, the company plans to further scale up this system to 10 MW and then 100 MW—equivalent to the energy required to supply 30,000 households. The expansion of the offshore solar system to 1 MW is supported by a public contribution from the Demonstration Energy and Climate Innovation (DEI+) arrangement, provided by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).

“With the scaling up to 1MW we, together with our partners and observers, are taking another huge step towards a future in which the Netherlands can meet its full energy needs from renewable energy from its own sea and land. With only 5% of the Dutch North Sea, we can generate half of the entire Dutch energy requirement with offshore solar,” says Allard van Hoeken, founder and CEO of Oceans of Energy.

Partners

Several partners, one of them Utrecht University's Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, participate in this project. The Copernicus Institute conducts research and education in the field of the transition to a sustainable society. Central to energy research is a system-level analysis of sustainable energy systems, energy carriers, and technologies. In recent years, knowledge and experience have been gained in the field of analysis, modeling, monitoring, and optimization of sustainable energy systems, in particular solar PV. A recent project with Oceans of Energy has resulted in a detailed performance model of offshore floating PV systems and a feasibility study on the benefits of integrating solar energy in an offshore wind farm. This new project enables the institute to build on previous research into comparing offshore and land-based solar energy.

Oceans of Energy

Oceans of Energy is a Dutch company that specializes in offshore solar energy and the associated anchoring technology and environmental impact research. The company is the market leader in this field. Founded in 2016, it has since grown to twenty-five employees. The company has so far raised €15 million to scale up production and projects, which are among others supported by RVO, MIT-Zuid-Holland, REACT EU, INTERREG, and Horizon-2020 programs. For more information see Oceans of Energy's press release.