Oceans of Energy

Our inspiring example is the waterlily, which uses a minimum of materials, yet is very strong when floating in the water. The water carrier the own weight of the waterlily, hence it can grow in any direction, capturing the sun over a large surface while staying very thin.
The waterlily is the solution for offshore solar, technically as well as economically.
The waterlily approach is novel in offshore applications, because solar PV is the first offshore application that needs to cover a large area. This can not be done at large scale with elevated platforms - these are good for single point structures, not for offshore solar. Elevating a large area above sea level would soon require too much material, exponentially increasing its own weight - for example bridge needs most of its structure to carry its own weight.

For this reason, the Oceans of Energy offshore solar floaters are not elevated but directly at sea level, supported by the water, like a waterlily. We dedicated 10 years R&D and 4 years non-stop offshore operations to prove that it works.

As the OOE offshore solar farm system uses a combination of solutions from nature with which we can cover a large area of the sea with a scalable, lightweight structure with minimum material usage, just like a waterlily; that can cover large surface areas without heavy reinforcements that would be needed to carry something in the air; and which moves with the incoming waves, allowing twisting and bending without inducing internal loads, just like a vertebral column.
The behavior of the Oceans of Energy farm system as a whole is like bamboo compared to the oak tree. An oak tree contains a lot of material, it can withstand a lot of loading from nature by being rock solid and not giving in, until at some point it collapses. Bamboo contains very little material, it moves along with the environmental loadings, and it much more robust against failure.

During the 4-years continuous North Sea operations, our offshore solar system withstood more than 10 named winter storms and extratropical cyclones including Ciara (219 km/h), Franklin, Evert, Dennis (230 km/h), Bella, Eunice, Dudley, Corry.

Oceans of Energy’s offshore farm system is the result of unique design choices followed by many years of learning with our system deployed in real offshore conditions in the rough North Sea, far away from the coast. It took heavy storms and many iterations to overcome the teething problems which resulted in the offshore solar system that realy works. Calculations, simulations and model testing are very important, but only the reality in the North Sea will tell whether a design is strong enough to survive. The sea is the only source of truth and has driven the Oceans of Energy system to perfection. This has given Oceans of Energy a headstart of multiple years compared to any other because any solar system will need multiple years and many iterations to succeed, like we did.

The offshore solar system must survive in violent, high waves. The best way to achieve this is to follow the dynamic movements of the waves without inducing internal loads. Since we want to be able to use standard, rigid PV panels, in order to be able to scale up to large volumes without being dependent on non-standard/non-commercial PV materials, the question was, how to follow dynamic movements when at the same time, PV panels are rigid and therefore the system needs to have rigid elements for supporting these panels without loading them?
Another element found in nature brought the solution: the vertebral column of the human body, our backbone. Our body's central support structure consists of rigid parts, the bones, and flexible parts, the disks. This combination allows us to twist and move and form a curvature. In a similar fashion, the OOE offshore solar farm system consists of rigid ‘pontoons’ that support standard rigid type PV modules, and in-between the pontoons there are flexible interconnectors that allow for movements. Just like the skeletal spine, the rigid and flexible parts together allow for a curvature that follows the wavelengths. This is exactly what we need at sea to make the floating system move with the waves without inducing high loads in the system.