Mocean Energy, SolarDuck collaborate on floating offshore solar
Scottish marine and solar energy firm Mocean Energy has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Netherlands-headquartered floating solar developer SolarDuck.
The two companies will work together to develop offshore floating hybrid power-generating systems, combining Mocean Energy’s wave energy technology with SolarDuck’s floating solar platforms.
The companies state that the high-level joint concept they deliver will primarily be used to provide clean and reliable energy for power, communications and auxiliary systems used by remote offshore energy assets. According to the two firms, this concept could also be used to support other offshore sectors, including defence and the wider blue economy.
Both SolarDuck and Mocean Energy have separately been recipients of investment from Norwegian cleantech and oceantech investor Katapult Ocean. Katapult Ocean has made numerous investments into SolarDuck since 2020, when SolarDuck took part in Katapult Ocean’s business accelerator programme.
Then, in December 2023, Katapult Ocean was part of a consortium of investors that provided SolarDuck with €15 million (US$17.6 million) in finance to support SolarDuck’s mission to deploy over 1GW of offshore solar PV generation capacity by the year 2030.
Meanwhile, Mocean Energy secured funding from Katapult Ocean in November of 2023, with Katapult Ocean being one of a number of investors contributing to a £2.2 million (US$2.9 million) equity raise.
Cameron McNatt, managing director at Mocean Energy, said that the MoU marks the next step in a “promising business and technical collaboration” between Mocean Energy and SolarDuck. McNatt added that the partnership will see particular focus being given to providing power and communications to remote sites in challenging environments.
Arnaud Ayral, chief commercial officer at SolarDuck, noted that “by combining complementary technologies, we can unlock new capabilities and value for customers in the offshore sector.”
SolarDuck has formed other powerful partnerships in the renewable energy industry in recent years. The firm has joined forces with renewable energy giant RWE to develop what it states will be the world’s largest offshore floating solar energy plant off the Dutch coast.
In July of last year, SolarDuck announced that it had successfully installed a pilot plant for this project in the Dutch North Sea, named the Merganser, a 0.5MWp test floating solar PV pilot, located 12km off the coast of Scheveningen, made up of six interconnected floating PV platforms.
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