Session: 09-04-01: Floating Solar Energy 1

Paper Number: 122928

122928 - Development Review of Open Water Economical Floating Photovoltaic Platform 

DEVELOPMENT REVIEW OF OPEN WATER ECONOMICAL FLOATING PHOTOVOLTAIC PLATFORM

Qiang Fu, Wenping Wang, Dejiang Li，Shumin Li，Kuiying Chen，Long Zheng, Chuanwen Wang, Peng Chen  

CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited, Yantai 264670, China

ABSTRUCT:

Building up safe, reliable, green photovoltaic (PV) power generation has become one key national development direction among China new energy industry. Nowadays, the available land for deploying PV is getting shorter, plus, national restrictions on deploying PV in lakes, reservoirs and other freshwater areas are also announced to ensure further environmental protection. Therefore, deploying floating PV platform on the seashore open water is emerging as national level urgent needs.

Currently, only a few feasible design attempts at Europe for seashore open water floating photovoltaic platforms is available. They are generally still at prototype stage, and not economic viable. In Asia, CIMC-raffles Offshore Engineering has made great effort to achieve a low cost floating platform design, suitable for multi-body connections. A four body interconnected platforms (400kW) has been installed at 4km away from coastline of Yantai, China for concept proof and data collection purpose. Apart from satisfying traditional design safety requirement, our novel design gives a distinctive feature from others, that is, using lightweight composite material towards a green and low-carbon platform design goal.

This paper is a project development review for our new generation semi-submersible type floating platform. It shall illustrate our comprehensive weight optimization considerations in various aspects. Such as, platform motion characteristic, station-keeping performance, the stability assessment, structural strength and etc. Specially, our global strength analysis approach is a multi-objective optimization process in fully coupled time-domain simulation. The hydro-structure load mapping together with corresponding mooring line loads are considered in every simulation time step. This can be more accurate and economic than traditional decoupled global strength analysis. Thus, an in-house developed fully coupled time-domain hydro-structure multi-body analysis procedure, including composite material modelling, shall be explained in this paper. Furthermore, novel heavy weight chain deployment is another merit points for lowering installation cost for mooring system. In addition, our accumulated experience including design, fabrication, installation and operation shall be presented with selected field monitoring data for design review purpose.

Our project review gives potential to form a standard assessment procedure for any seashore floating PV platform. Our continuous research direction, especially green and low-carbon goal, can be one good option for future common progress in the new energy industry.

Keywords: Floating PV platform; Semi-submerged-type; Seashore open water; Coupled time-domain global analysis; Composite material; Nearshore mooring system; Field monitoring system

Presenting Author: Wenping Wang CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited

Presenting Author Biography: Mr Wang Wenping was born in 1970, graduated from National University of Singapore (NUS), civil engineering department with master’s degree in 1997. He has been working in Singapore marine offshore industry for 26 years. Specifically, He has been working in Keppel Marine & Deepwater (KMDT) basic design group for more than 10 years. He has been key member to deliver keppel several offshore semi, drillship, TLP hull in complete basic design. He has rich engineering experience for various kinds of floating structure basic design. He joined CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited R&D group in 2021, which is one of largest China offshore engineering groups, as basic design review role. Apart from traditional offshore engineering projects, his current research also covers quite a lot on new ocean energy industry, such as, novel floating solar and wind platform design area.

More details are as follows.

Name: WENPING WANG
Yantai CIMC-Raffles Offshore Limited, Strategic R&D Center.
Address: No. 33, Keji Road, Hi-tech industrial development zone
Yantai, Shandong, P. R. China, 264670

Cell Phone: +86-18363879692
E-mail: wenping.wang@cimc-raffles.com

Education:
1. 1995–1997, National University of Singapore, Civil Engineering, Master of engineering.
2. 1991–1994, Southeast University, Civil Engineering, Master of engineering
3. 1987–1991, Southeast University, Civil Engineering, Bachelor of engineering

Work Experience:
Principal Engineer, Yantai CIMC-Raffles Offshore Ltd (China), 2021 - current
Technical Manager, Keppel Marine & Deepwater Technology P L, 2012 – 2020
Executive Engineer, Sembcorp Marine Technology P L, Jurong Shipyard, 2009 – 2012
Senior Engineer, Keppel Deepwater Technology P L, Keppel FEELS , 2006 – 2009
Technical Leader, ANSYS INC Singapore ASD, 1999 – 2006
Engineer, Beca Carter Hollings & Ferner (SEA) P L, 1997 – 1999

SELECTED PROFESSIONAL/ACADEMIC PUBLICATION
Journal
1. System Identification of Linear MDOF Structures under Ambient Excitation, Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 28, 61-77 (1999)
2. Preliminary Research on Aseismic Design of Multi-storey Buildings with Two Soft Bottom Stories, Journal of Shandong Architectural and Civil Engineering Institute, Vol 11, No. 2, 1996, pp 18-24.
3. Design Theory and Method Introduction of Shear-bearing Type Elaso-plastic Time History Structural Analysis, Shandong Architecture, No. 4, 1995, pp 40-44.
Conference
1. Wave Induced Losses Simulation of Floating Solar Photovoltaic Systems at Open Waters, ISOPE- Ottawa, Canadia, June 19-23, 2023.
2. Recent Advancement in Tendon Technology for Deepwater Application, International Conference On Hydrodynamics (ICHD 2014) 19 – 24 October 2014 Singapore
3. Evaluation on the Effect of Fabrication Tolerances on the Fatigue Performance of Critical Connections Between Hull Structure and Topsides in Drillship. Proc of 24th (2014) international Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference, Busan, Korea, June 15-20, 2014
4. Design and Construction Feasibility Study for Semi-submersible Drilling Tender, Mobile Offshore Drilling Units convention 2011, June 23-24, Singapore.
5. DP Capability Assessment Tool for Semi-submersible, DP Asia 2011, June21-22, Singapore.
6. Simulation and Design of Optimization of a Micropump, SPIE’s 2001 Symposium and Education Program on Micromachining and Microfabrication, 21-24 Oct 2001, San Francisco, California USA, 4560-06.
7. Eigenspace Algorithm for Structural Identification of MDOF Structures under Ambient excitation, International Conference of Structural Safety and Reliability, Japan, November 1997.

Skill Summary
An experienced Marine and Offshore Basic Design professional with over 20 years of track record in leading a structural group for complete semisubmersible and drillship hull, and topside structural design. Also good in FPSO, TLP, containership and etc with basic design experience in Houston design office. Familiar with various FEM tools for Global/Local strength/Fatigue/Vibration analysis for various kinds of ships with proven yard records in both Engineering and Production team. Experienced in liaising with client, class, and design groups, dealing with diverse requirements. Also interested in contributing knowledge to any Research and Development for both institutes and industries.

Authors:

Qiang Fu CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Wenping Wang CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Dejiang Li CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Shumin Li CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Kuiying Chen CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Long Zheng CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Chuanwen Wang CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited
Peng Chen CIMC Raffles Offshore Engineering Limited