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

Paper Number: 121546

121546 - Optimization of Floating Pv Module at Sea in Early Design 

Floating PV farm at sea is becoming one popular topic. So far floating PV panels have been deployed mostly in water bodies like lakes, reservoirs and so on. Due to the limitation of such locations, there is a need to explore new areas for further development of floating PV. Sea area within 20 kilometers from shore is the target location for this study, where environmental conditions are relatively mild though still severe than the corresponding conditions at lakes and water reservoirs. To face this need, optimal design of floating PV at sea is studied here.

 

In this study, a four column supported floating PV module concept is adopted and the capacity of this module is around 100kW, a floating PV farm can consist of dozens or hundreds of such modules. An analytical solution of the floating PV module’s response in regular waves is established, together with response spectrum under given wave spectrum. Based on this, an optimization scheme for designing such a floating PV module is established where the material/construction cost, stability and hydrodynamic response at sea are optimized at the same time.

 

For a floating PV module at sea with capacity around 100kW, this study presents the methodology of performing initial optimization design in early design phase. The outcome of the optimization is a set of floating PV module main dimensions all giving a good overall performance. Based on this, dedicated optimization work may be carried out with more specified input information like site locations, farm scale and so on, which can be carried out at a detailed design stage and beyond the scope of this study.

Presenting Author: Jingzhe Jin Shanghai Jiaotong University

Presenting Author Biography: I have been working at Shanghai Jiaotong University since Dec. 2022. Before that, I was working at SINTEF OCEAN in 2007-2022 as a Senior researcher.

I did my Bachelor and Master degree in Shanghai Jiaotong University and my PhD degree in University of Southampton.

My research work focuses on traditional and new type ocean/offshore structures' response in a sea environment； performance analysis of needed marine operation during their whole service life, by means of numerical, experimental studies, full scale data analysis and combination of different approaches.

Authors:

Jingzhe Jin Shanghai Jiaotong University
Liqing Zhang Shanghai Jiaotong University
Zhiliang Lin Shanghai Jiaotong University
Jiehong Kong SINTEF Energy Research
Zhen Gao Shanghai Jiaotong University