A study into the effect of Hull Configuration on the performance of floating solar PV structure

At present, energy transition is a reality in the journey towards achieving net zero emission. Among others, the development of floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) power plants is one of many possible renewable energy technologies that received considerable attention. One of the reasons for that is attributed to land acquisition which can lead to conflicts, whilst the use of sea is more flexible. Therefore, the development of floating solar PV situated at the near shore (later can be moved offshore) is promising particularly in order to withstand the harsh environment. The study aims to demonstrate such an innovative design of a floating structure and two types of hulls (monohull and twin-hull) are considered and focused on the seakeeping performance of the two bodies. BEM approach with Green-Function based on the 3-D diffraction panel method together with the use of the Joint North Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP) wave spectrum is carried out to accomplish the seakeeping characteristic. The final computational simulation results show that the twin-hull model has more advantages than the monohull design. The trend of the RAO pattern, response spectra, and significant response for heave and pitch motion represent only slight differences between the two proposed designs. However, substantial disparity emerges in roll motion, with the difference in response values in prevailing 0o -roll heading standing at 53%, 39%, 27%, and 18% for sea states 1 through 4, respectively. Moreover, in 45o wave heading (quartering sea) it demonstrates a slightly lower disparity compared to the 0o wave heading (following sea) through sea-state 1-4 standing for 50%, 37%, 24% and 16% respectively.

The authors also acknowledge that this research was partly funded by the Innovate UK "Solar2Wave" project, under Grant Number 10048187.

Journal of Advanced Research in Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Sciences