Dutch-Norwegian floating solar company SolarDuck has been selected as the provider of offshore floating PV technology for a hybrid power plant in the Netherlands.
RWE, as part of its bid for the Hollandse Kust West VII offshore wind farm, gave SolarDuck exclusive provision rights for offshore floating solar with accompanied energy storage. They will build a 5MW floating solar demonstrator, and the project is due to become operational in 2026.
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SolarDuck CEO Koen Burgers said: “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.”
RWE and SolarDuck recently entered into a partnership to explore the commercialisation of SolarDuck’s offshore floating solar technology, with the company saying that delivering this project would allow it to scale faster and expand its technology across the globe.
The Hollandse Kust West VII wind farm is one of two farms due to become operational in 2026 with a capacity of 700MW. It’s located approximately 53km off the west coast of the Netherlands.
Floating PV is growing in profile as a crucial part of the world’s decarbonisation and net zero targets. Austrian utility EVN and BayWa.r.e recently announced what they said will be Europe’s ‘largest’ floating PV installation, in Grafenwörth, Austria.
BayWa.r.e. also installed 71MWp of floating PV in the Netherlands last year, which it said were the largest floating solar plants outside of Asia.