Prospect of Offshore Floating Photovoltaic Power Generation Technology and Its Integrated Development

Abstract

[Introduction] Under the backdrop of "carbon peak and neutrality", coastal provinces and cities in China are gradually developing clean energy towards the ocean. The development of offshore wind farm has begun to take shape and achieved equal price of connection to power grid, and pilot projects for offshore floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems are emerging. The comprehensive development of a variety of marine resources, the intensive use of sea resources in the energy sector, and the creation of an integrated marine energy system are of great significance for coastal provinces to achieve high-quality carbon neutrality. [Method] The article summarized the current development and pilot projects of offshore FPV technology both inside and outside of China, analyzed the advantages and challenges of various offshore FPV technologies, predicted the future market size of offshore FPV in China, explored the integration development mode of offshore FPV and other offshore infrastructure, and provided the integration scenarios and economic analysis based on case studies. [Result] The offshore FPV technology is currently at the pilot stage with broad market in the future. The main technical challenge is the viability of floating structure under harsh marine environmental conditions, and the unit cost of the existing pilot projects is relatively high, however, it has enormous potential of combination with other marine facilities. [Conclusion] The integration of offshore FPV and other offshore facilities such as offshore wind power can effectively improve the utilization efficiency of energy facilities and reduce the cost of construction and operation. The complementary use of marine scenery also effectively solves the stability and security problems of a single energy supply.

Keywords

• floating photovoltaic (fpv)
• offshore fpv
• offshore wind power
• marine ranches
• integrated design
• floating structure