en.Wedoany.com Reported - Offshore floating solar company SolarDuck and the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) have received a €3.2 million subsidy from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) to advance the "Steady Seas" research project. The project aims to advance the basic design of SolarDuck's "Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub" (OFPH), a single-platform offshore solar solution that can provide reliable power, communications, and other utility services to remote offshore and subsea assets.
As offshore energy activities move further from shore, the need for reliable on-site power is becoming increasingly prominent. Subsea oil and gas infrastructure, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects, offshore monitoring systems, and other remote assets currently rely primarily on long-distance submarine cables, umbilicals, or local power generation using diesel generators. These solutions are often costly, complex to install, susceptible to damage, and have high carbon emissions.
SolarDuck's Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub aims to offer an alternative: a redeployable offshore platform that generates renewable energy directly at the point of need. By integrating energy storage and auxiliary systems to support continuous operation, the OFPH is expected to reduce the lifecycle costs of CCS and subsea tieback projects, thereby unlocking investment opportunities.
The Steady Seas project builds on the operational experience and data from SolarDuck's DEI+ Merganser project in the Dutch North Sea. In this project, SolarDuck will lead the overall design and system integration of the OFPH, while MARIN will be responsible for hydrodynamic analysis, simulations, and basin testing to validate the platform's behavior, reliability, and wave response under real offshore conditions. These results will support subsequent demonstration projects with offshore industry partners.
The Steady Seas project combines applied research and technology development to address key technical issues for the Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub, covering hydrodynamic performance, mooring and motion behavior, power and communication system integration, and subsea infrastructure interfaces. The project will translate experience from early offshore solar trials into a robust basic design for an industry-specific platform that can serve offshore oil and gas, carbon capture and storage, and other remote offshore applications.
Don Hoogendoorn, Chief Technology Officer of SolarDuck, stated that Steady Seas enables them to apply the experience gained from building and testing Merganser in the North Sea to a design tailored for single-platform offshore applications. The technical challenges of powering assets far from shore are significant, involving mooring and motion behavior as well as integration with subsea infrastructure. This project allows them to design and validate robust answers before the solution is deployed at sea.
William Otto of MARIN said they are proud to continue collaborating with SolarDuck to support the further maturation of offshore floating photovoltaic technology. In the Steady Seas project, MARIN will study the impact of topology on behavior and hydrodynamic coefficients, and assess the effects of extreme wave conditions on structural loads, including wave buildup beneath the platform. This rigorous, test-driven validation is essential for confidently advancing offshore solar technology toward commercial deployment.
Upon completion of the research phase, SolarDuck plans to collaborate with industry partners to advance demonstration efforts. Joint industry projects are currently being established to test the Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub under real offshore conditions and verify its ability to power and control remote assets in a real-world environment.
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