Energy
Climate change stands as one of the most critical challenges of our time. To meet the climate targets established for 2030 and 2050,
Europe must embrace innovative and impactful solutions. Enhancing offshore energy systems, which have emerged as a promising—yet challenging—pathway toward the development of sustainable energy, represents the answer to increase renewable resources' adoption within the energy sector.
The BAMBOO project is focused on tackling the challenges and barriers for the implementation of a sustainable, large-scale offshore solar system of 1 km², which will act as a standard industry format for the rollout of offshore solar projects at scale. Fifteen leading organizations from the EU and UK will collaborate in this project to scale up Oceans of Energy’s pioneering offshore solar technology to standard formats of 50-200 MW, laying the foundation for future Gigawatt-scale solar farms.
The project's key objectives are:
- Realizing improvements in design and robustness to extend and validate solar farm lifetimes to 25 years.
- Expanding the technology’s application potential and de-risking investments through enlarging the current demonstration prototype systems.
- Increasing understanding and addressing environmental impacts and opportunities of large-scale offshore solar systems to responsibly expand offshore solar applications and deliver environmental monitoring guidelines and end-of-life strategies for large-scale solar.
- Enabling a fundable business case for the implementation of a first 1 km² offshore solar system integrated in a wind farm before the end of the project.
By achieving these goals, the BAMBOO project aims to become a new standard in offshore energy farms.
Besides acting as the coordinator of BAMBOO, RINA Consulting S.p.A. is engaged in the development of a pioneering predictive yield model for offshore solar systems. Designed to develop accurate yield predictions in the complex set of effects from the offshore environment, this model will allow extending Energy Yield Assessment (EYA) studies to Offshore Solar farms.
In addition, RINA is deeply involved in activities aimed at supporting the design of a dynamic export cable for offshore solar in shallow sea environments. We support the cable manufacturer involved in the project, conducting static and dynamic analyses to validate onto the new dynamic export cable design.
Furthermore, RINA collaborates at the assessment of the circularity of offshore solar systems through an activity devoted to the identification and analysis of suitable strategies for the recycling or repurposing of the end-of-life photovoltaic modules and electrical components involved in offshore solar farms. This analysis also includes the evaluation of technical and non-technical (economic/financial, market, legal/regulatory) barriers to recycling/repurposing.
The BAMBOO project is a visionary project designed to reshape Europe’s approach to offshore renewable energy. Its goal is ambitious: to develop a groundbreaking offshore solar system spanning 1 km². This system has an installed capacity of 50-200 MW that fits in between four offshore wind turbines and, having a complementary energy profile, enables five times more energy generation per unit of sea space. Thereby, the initiative is set to become the industry standard for large-scale offshore solar, crucial for Europe’s climate goals for 2030 and 2050.
1. RINA Consulting S.p.A. (Italy) 2. Oceans of Energy BV (Netherlands) 3. Pauwels Transformers (Belgium) 4. Solarge International (Netherlands) 5. BV Twentsche Kabelfabriek (Netherlands) 6. SolarCleano S. A R. L. (Luxembourg) 7. Aquatera Atlantico SL (Spain) 8. American Bureau of Shipping (Greece) 9. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Forderung der Angewandten Forschung EV – Center for Silicon Photovoltaics (Germany) 10. Stichting Maritiem Research Instituut Nederland (Netherlands) 11. SIRRIS Het Collectief Centrum van de Technologische Industrie (Belgium) 12. WAVEC/Offshore Renewables – Centro De Energia Offshore Associacao (Portugal) 13. European Marine Board IVZW (Belgium) 14. Vattenfall Vindkraft A/S (Denmark) 15. Aquatera Limited (United Kingdom)
