| Work Detail |
An international team of floating PV specialists and researchers is working on affordability, sustainability, and reliability, as well as applying the latest technologies, to accelerate adoption. An international team of floating PV (FPV) specialists is working to improve the prospects for FPV by finding ways to make it more affordable, while ensuring it is environmentally sustainable, and efficient to deploy. Based on a belief that the best way to accelerate the adoption of FPV is to further improve cost-efficiency and sustainability in the markets where FPV is competitive today, a three-year project began in September 2024 with €7.1 million ($7.4 million) in funding from the Horizon Europe program. The projects title is Sustainable, Reliable, and Efficient Floating PV Power Plants, or SURE FPV for short. Goals include cost-effective robust designs, deployment guidelines, and reduced levelized cost of energy (LCOE). The team is developing structural and functional requirements of FPV products across the entire product lifecycle, verifying longevity and reliability. It includes understanding the impact on ecosystems and biodiversity. The project envisions FPV products that are modular and easy for project developers to customize coverage ratios, light penetration, and layouts. It is also developing models and frameworks to mitigate financial and reliability risks. The scope covers a variety of waterbodies, including saltwater corrosion and certain higher-sea states. Three European FPV specialist companies participating in the project plan to complete several installations. Ciel et Terre (CTI), will be developing and testing its latest floater design within the SURE FPV project, first in a 50 kW installation, then 5 MW. It will work with Laketricity, a unit of CTI, to build the pilot. Fellow FPV specialist Zimmermann PV Stahlbau (ZIM) will work with BayWa re to build a 5 MW facility based on ZIMs latest floater, connection, and anchoring technology. Elsewhere, Sunlit Sea, which is scaling up its FPV solution, will build a smaller, commercially relevant, pilot of 100 kW on the Norwegian coast. In addition, module manufacturer MetSolar, will explore how to adapt manufacturing for FPV applications, and Sabic Global Technologies NV will contribute to reducing the environmental impact of plastic components used for mounting. European research institutions joining the project coordinator Norway-based Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) and the aforementioned industrial partners are the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Germanys Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Association Compaz, and Deltares. |
