Vidi grant: Model for floating solar farms
Oriol Colomés Gené is awarded a NWO Vidi grant to work on a first digital ocean to assess floating solar farms. The model will enable researchers to study the interactions between the waves, wind and floating solar platforms. Understanding the impact opens doors to work on improving the efficiency of energy production.
To increase renewable energy production, new locations are being explored for solar panels. Several companies are working on floating solar farms at sea, to broaden the possibilities.
Solar farms effecting wind and waves
The platforms with solar panels, which can be as large as a square kilometre each, are ideally located near offshore wind farms, as this is where connection to the energy grid has already been realised. But how do wind and solar platforms affect each other? And do these large islands of panels change the waves?
To answer these questions, Colomés, Assistant Professor in Offshore Engineering, is working on a new advanced digital framework in which he can simulate the interaction between waves, wind and structures. Here, the complex physics of the environment is modelled.
Optimisation
Solar energy farms are already under construction. Colomés: “A model of the whole system, at the scale of an entire farm, is not yet available. With the model, we can eventually optimise energy production.” As an example, he mentions the construction of several islands of solar panels together. If one island affects its surroundings, such as waves, the design of a second one behind it should be different.
