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Flexible Floating Football-Field Sized Solar Panels (digitaltrends.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the oceans-of-energy dept.

mdsolar writes: Offshore wind farms are growing in popularity as energy providers look for different ways of harvesting power from the sun without using valuable land resources. One unique idea being developed by engineers at Vienna University of Technology is a floating platform called a Heliofloat that would function as a sea-based solar power station.... an open-bottom, flexible float as large as a football field and covered from edge to edge with solar panels. Heliofloats can operate as standalone platforms for smaller operations with moderate energy requirements. Multiple heliofloats also can be connected together, forming a floating solar-harvesting power grid.
Each heliofloat is 100 meters long, reportedly cheap and easy to build, and may eventually be used to power desalination plants and biomass extraction.

11 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Offshore what now? by flopsquad · · Score: 4, Funny

    Offshore wind farms are growing in popularity as energy providers look for different ways of harvesting power from the sun without using valuable land resources.

    Which is why coastal states are now experimenting with offshore nuclear reactors, to harness the geothermal energy derived from burning coal.

    --
    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
  2. California and Oceania by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    Desalination is an ideal use for fluctuating power sources, so long as you can find enough sheltered bays and estuaries to float them. Hawaii has a particular problem finding a carbon-free power source that will work on scattered islands, and has quite a few locations where these panels could be located.

    But the real potential for this idea would be the atolls of the south Pacific. These places rely on diesel generators now, and generally have a small number of users who have no need for an industrial baseload.

    1. Re:California and Oceania by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Offshore wind is done only because of the favorable winds, not because of land costs or availability. Solar doesn't need to go offshore, it only adds to the cost. If you've ever been around ocean mist, you know how quickly it covers clear surfaces with deposits.

    2. Re:California and Oceania by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      "I think you forgot about the NIMBYs."

      No, in fact I think it's glorious that renewables advocates are getting hit by these cranks too. This is our best chance to finally get NIMBYs laughed off the political stage.

    3. Re:California and Oceania by rgbatduke · · Score: 2

      I think if you calculated the amount of water that could be desalinated from a football size array of solar panels, you would be surprised how little it it.

      You mean, compared to simply building a solar distilling plant with the same floating plastic? Could it possibly be less efficient to collect solar energy at a penalty of (say) 90% and use that energy at an additional penalty to desalinate water no matter how you try to do it than it is to take close to 100% of the energy -- including the infrared and UV -- and simply heat up a black sheet with a thin skin of water over it and use cooler water circulated up from depth by a very small solar power to condense the water vapor cooking off of the top so it can be collected?

      Solar stills have been around for a long time. You can buy them online. They often are included in life raft equipment. A 24" floating solar still can produce around 1.4 L of fresh water in an overcast day, more than that on a sunny day, and doesn't even use cooler water from under the surface layer to enhance the condensation rate. If we assume 1 foot in radius per 1.5 Q, that's pi square feet per 1.5 Q. A football field is 300x300 \approx pi x 30000, so it should produce 30,000 x 1.5 q = 45,000 Q/day in cloudy conditions, more in sunny ones. That' a bit over 10,000 gallons/day, and needs solar cells or alternative power only to pump the resulting water from the collector to somewhere else.

      Now, is that only a "little"? Depends on what you want it for. That's enough for quite a few houses or people. Not enough to do much irrigation in a very hot climate, but it is not nothing, either. But there are a lot of football field sized areas in the ocean, and a direct side effect of this is the cooling of the ocean underneath, which can have either good or bad ecological effects but in moderation probably mostly good.

      rgb

      --
      Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
    4. Re:California and Oceania by phayes · · Score: 2

      Open water desalination plants would avoid a two major blocking points that no-one has mentioned up to now:
      - Land based plants in the South Pacific are difficult because they have very little unoccupied horizontal land.
      - Placing the plants near shore would kill the already fragile coral reefs.

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  3. Hydropower reservoirs by Framboise · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A good place to put such floating panels are the hydropower reservoirs.
    Large surface is available, of little use, power lines and converters are nearby, and the wind is less strong at the bottom of these lake than on sea.

    1. Re:Hydropower reservoirs by mdsolar · · Score: 3, Informative

      That is happening. Another advantage is that evaporation is reduced, conserving water.

  4. Whew. by argStyopa · · Score: 2

    It's a good thing wind and weather are never a challenge at sea!

    --
    -Styopa
  5. Floating solar already common by mdsolar · · Score: 2

    Floating solar is already common. Here is a large example. http://spectrum.ieee.org/energ... Putting solar on reservoirs also helps to reduce evaporation and conserve water. The novelty here is the resilience to rough water using the modular open base float system. It is notable also that sea based solar could replace fossil oil for liquid fuel production since the Navy has already patented a way to turn seawater into fuel.

  6. Talk to a few boat owners by Solandri · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey, all you people who think it's such a great idea to build stuff to use all that open space on the ocean: Talk to a few boat owners first. You'll quickly come to understand that between wave action, salt water spray getting into every crack and crevice, corrosion, and biological fouling (both below from crustaceans and seaweed, and above from bird and seal droppings), you're constantly fighting to keep the damn thing from falling apart within a few years.

    Just save yourself a lot of heartache and build the thing on land, or even on top of freshwater reservoirs. Anywhere but the ocean. You don't put structures there unless you have to.