SolarDuck, MARIN Secures €3.2 Mn Subsidy For Offshore Floating Power Hub For Remote Subsea Assets

Dutch-Norwegian offshore floating solar company SolarDuck and the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN) have been awarded a €3.2 million subsidy by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) for the Steady Seas research programme.

In a press release, the company said the project will advance the foundational design of SolarDuck’s Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub (OFPH), a single-platform offshore solar solution developed to provide reliable power, communications, and other utilities to remote offshore and subsea assets.

SolarDuck’s Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub is designed as a redeployable offshore platform that generates renewable power while supporting continuous operations through integrated energy storage and auxiliary systems. The company said the solution has the potential to reduce the lifecycle costs of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and subsea tie-back projects while unlocking new investment opportunities.

The company also highlighted the growing need for reliable in-field power as offshore energy activities move further from shore. It noted that subsea oil and gas infrastructure, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects, offshore monitoring systems, and other remote assets often rely on long subsea cables, umbilicals, or local diesel-powered generation. These solutions can be costly, complex to install, vulnerable to damage, and carbon-intensive.

Previously, SolarDuck collaborated with RWE to install its offshore floating solar photovoltaic (OFPV) pilot project, Merganser, located 12 kilometres off the Dutch coast. The pilot project aims to test and gather knowledge on the manufacturing, assembly, offshore installation, and maintenance methodologies required for the large-scale commercial deployment of OFPV technology. Merganser has a 0.5 megawatt-peak (MWp) capacity and is located in the Dutch North Sea, approximately 12 kilometres off the coast of Scheveningen. 

Additionally, SolarDuck has also partnered with Italian independent asset manager Green Arrow Capital and Italy-based developer New Developments S.r.l. to develop a 120 MWp Offshore Floating Solar Photovoltaic (OFPV) farm integrated with a 420 MW Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) project in Corigliano, Calabria, Italy.

Steady Seas Research Programme

Its Steady Seas builds on the operational experience and data gathered through SolarDuck’s DEI+ Merganser project in the Dutch North Sea. Under the new programme, it will lead the overall OFPH design and system integration. At the same time, MARIN will contribute hydrodynamic analysis, simulations, and basin testing to validate the platform’s behaviour, reliability, and wave response under realistic offshore conditions. These results will support the next phase of demonstration projects with offshore industry partners.

Scope Of Work

Under the scope of the work, SolarDuck explained that its Steady Seas project combines applied research and technology development to address key technical challenges for the Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub. These include hydrodynamic performance, mooring and motion behaviour, integration of power and communication systems, and the interface with subsea infrastructure.

The programme will translate lessons from earlier offshore solar pilot projects into a robust basic design for a sector-specific platform that supports offshore oil and gas, carbon capture and storage, and other remote offshore applications.

Don Hoogendoorn, CTO of SolarDuck, said, “Steady Seas allows us to take the lessons learned from building and testing Merganser in the North Sea and apply them to a design tailored for single-platform offshore applications. The technical challenges of powering assets far offshore are significant, from mooring and motion behaviour to integration with subsea infrastructure. This programme gives us the means to engineer and validate robust answers before the solution is deployed at sea.”

William Otto of MARIN said, “We are proud to continue our collaboration with SolarDuck and to support the further maturation of offshore floating photovoltaics. Within Steady Seas, MARIN will investigate the impact of the topology on behaviour and hydrodynamic coefficients, while also assessing the impact of extreme wave conditions on structural loading, including wave build-up beneath the platform. This kind of rigorous, test-driven validation is essential to bring offshore solar technology confidently toward commercial deployment.”

Joint Industry Projects

Following the completion of the research phase, SolarDuck intends to move towards demonstration projects in collaboration with industry partners. Joint Industry Projects are currently being established to test the Offshore Floating Power & Utility Hub under operational offshore conditions and validate its ability to power and control remote assets in real-world environments.