engleski

Offshore solar energy harnessing: A review of existing applications, future plans and possibilities

The amount of solar energy that reaches Earth surface every hour is equal to 77% of the total worldwide annual energy consumption. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans and seas. Although, solar systems are installed on land surfaces, there is rising interest for the exploitation of solar energy hitting water surfaces, both for stationary electricity generation in offshore power plants and solar-assisted sea transport. At present, the world's first floating solar power plant is scheduled for construction on the basin of a hydro power plant in India. Japan is planning to launch a semi-submersible hybrid offshore power plant for conversion of wave, sea current, wind and solar energy into electricity. Among using different energy sources, these offshore power plants could use the difference between surface and bottom sea temperatures to generate electricity and desalinated water in ocean thermal energy cycles. Offshore power plants for the parallel generation of electricity and desalinated water could be life-saving solutions in densely populated yet energy and water scarce island countries. Solar sea transport is emerging too, though large PV surfaces have to be employed to assure modest amounts of electricity. The largest, completely solar-powered ship in the world is PlanetSolar, a 31 m long and 95 tonnes weighing trimaran which uses 537 m2 of PV cells to generate an average power of 20 kW and a cruising speed of 7.5 knots.

solar PV; floating solar power plant; ocean thermal energy; solar watercraft

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