Offshore floating solar developer SolarDuck and the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) have secured a €3.2 million subsidy from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) to advance the Steady Seas research programme, aimed at developing an offshore floating platform capable of delivering renewable power and utility services to remote offshore and subsea assets.
The funding will support the foundational design of SolarDuck’s Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub (OFPH), a single-platform offshore solar solution designed to provide reliable electricity, communications and other utility services for offshore infrastructure. The platform is intended to support applications including subsea oil and gas facilities, carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, offshore monitoring systems and other remote marine assets.
As offshore energy operations continue to move further from shore, operators increasingly rely on long subsea power cables, umbilicals or diesel-powered generators to supply remote infrastructure. According to SolarDuck, these conventional solutions can be expensive to install and maintain, vulnerable to damage and associated with higher carbon emissions.
The Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub is being developed as a redeployable offshore platform capable of generating renewable electricity at the point of demand. The system will also incorporate integrated energy storage and auxiliary systems to ensure continuous operation. SolarDuck said the solution has the potential to lower lifecycle costs for CCS developments and subsea tie-back projects while creating new investment opportunities in offshore energy infrastructure.
The Steady Seas programme builds on operational experience and performance data collected through SolarDuck’s DEI+ Merganser offshore floating solar demonstration project in the Dutch North Sea.
Under the programme, SolarDuck will lead the overall platform design and system integration, while MARIN will conduct hydrodynamic analysis, numerical simulations and basin testing to validate the platform’s stability, wave response and operational reliability under realistic offshore conditions. The findings are expected to support future demonstration projects with offshore industry partners.
The research programme will focus on several technical aspects of the Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub, including hydrodynamic performance, mooring behaviour, platform motion, integration of power and communication systems, and the interface with subsea infrastructure. The objective is to translate insights gained from earlier offshore solar pilots into a commercially viable platform tailored for offshore oil and gas, carbon capture and storage, and other remote offshore applications.
Don Hoogendoorn, Chief Technology Officer of SolarDuck, said the programme will enable the company to apply lessons learned from the Merganser project toward engineering and validating a platform specifically designed for single-platform offshore applications before deployment at sea.
William Otto of MARIN said the institute will evaluate the platform’s hydrodynamic characteristics, structural loading under extreme wave conditions and wave interaction beneath the structure. He added that rigorous testing and validation are essential for advancing offshore floating photovoltaic technology toward commercial deployment.
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