Hollandse Kust Noord to add floating solar panels in 2025

A floating solar demonstration project to be installed within the Hollandse Kust Noord offshore wind farm site will be constructed in 2025, according to TNO, the Dutch organization for applied scientific research.

TNO will work on research and demonstration of offshore solar energy in the new offshore wind farm together with CrossWind, a Shell-Eneco consortium that won the tender to build the Hollandse Kust Noord project on 29 July.

According to TNO, the offshore solar demo project will have a minimum of 0.5 MWp (megawatt-peak) of installed capacity and will be built in 2025, some two years after the offshore wind farm becomes operational.

“The CrossWind project represents a major step towards the future of solar energy generation on the North Sea”, TNO said.

The 759 MW Hollandse Kust Noord, located some 18.5 kilometres off the west coast of the Netherlands, will comprise 69 Siemens Gamesa 11 MW turbines.

Along with floating solar panels, Hollandse Kust Noord will comprise four more technology solutions to ensure continuous power supply. These solutions, to be employed at the offshore site as demonstration projects, could be implemented at full-scale in the future, CrossWind said.

Namely, the consortium also plans to equip the project with short-term battery storage and green hydrogen production infrastructure as an additional storage solution.

Furthermore, the wind turbines will be optimally tuned to the network to minimise the negative ‘wake’ effects that wind turbines have on each other.

Shell and Eneco also aim to use the combination of these individual measures to provide an uninterrupted power production, regardless of the wind situation.