Norwegian company SolarDuck on Friday said it will build a 5-MW floating solar power plant as part of the Hollandse Kust West VII offshore wind park in the Netherlands together with its partner RWE AG (ETR:RWE).
The German group on Thursday won a tender to build one of the two wind farms in the Hollandse Kust West (HKW) area in the Dutch part of the North Sea, the 700-MW HKW VII site. The floating solar project was included in its bid alongside other system integration innovations aimed at fully integrating the electricity generation into the Dutch energy system such as onshore electrolysers. SolarDuck and RWE agreed to collaborate in July 2022.
The 5-MW demonstrator with integrated energy storage will be the world’s largest offshore floating solar power plant. The hybrid offshore wind and offshore floating solar project is scheduled to become operational in 2026.
SolarDuck, created following a spin-off from Damen Shipyards, expects that the project will propel it towards commercialisation of its technology.
“SolarDuck, being the first to build a hybrid project at this scale, will demonstrate the robustness of our solution, prove the important role of system integration in building future-fit energy systems, and enable the scaling of the technology to accelerate its adoption,” said chief executive Koen Burgers.
