Belgian trio unveils offshore floating solar tech

Three Belgian companies, marine contractors DEME and Jan De Nul, as well as engineering firm Tractebel, on Wednesday unveiled an offshore floating photovoltaic (PV) technology called Seavolt.

The partners plan to test the new technology off the Belgian coast in the summer.

They said Seavolt can operate in harsh marine conditions and lead to the fast deployment of large volumes of additional local renewable energy by combining offshore floating solar with existing and future offshore wind farms.

“In the same way that we have seen wind technology moving from land to the sea, we are seeing the extension of the whole energy system towards offshore locations,” said Tractebel chief executive Philippe Van Troeye.

“Along with offshore green fuel production, offshore energy islands, interconnectors and potential solutions for energy storage, we believe offshore floating PV has an important role to play in the acceleration of the energy transition,” added Van Troeye.

Seavolt was developed by Tractebel, DEME and Jan De Nul together with Ghent University and the RBIN (Royal Institute of Natural Sciences), with the support of VLAIO (Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship), the Energy Transition Fund and the Relaunch Fund.

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