Back in July 2021 I made a video looking at floating offshore wind turbines and quite a
few viewers suggested that, you know, while you're out there getting wet and cold and miserable and
everything, why don't we really capitalize on the energy available and build wave power into each
individual turbine so we could harvest power from above and below the surface. Now I must admit my
response at the time was that although it sounded like a very good piece of lateral thinking it was
unlikely that the economics and logistics would stack up well enough to make it a viable option.
Well it turns out I may have been unnecessarily pessimistic because a very similar concept is
apparently being perfected as we speak and the company making the devices
claims to have gone one better and added solar panels to the mix too. So is it really feasible
to create power from solar wind and wave all from the same offshore floating platform?
Hello and welcome to Just Have a Think. It's sort of the holy grail of renewable energy
isn't it really, a floating platform that can make use of all the sources of energy that
nature can throw at it. I'm quite sure plenty of people have had the same conceptual idea
but, at least up until now anyway, no one has worked out all the logistics
and got a working example up to a point where it can be rolled out commercially.
Well that's roughly where a German outfit called Sinn Power has got to with their
design which they call the offshore hybrid platform or OHP, which for those of us of a
certain age must definitely not be confused with the other OHP we might remember from yesteryear
which is an overhead projector. They definitely wouldn't work so well offshore! This fresh-faced
group of engineers and entrepreneurs headed up by the system's inventor Dr Philip Sinn no doubt have
no memory of such antiquated technology because they apparently have an average age of just 28.
So how does it all work then? Well the basic idea here is to install bespoke platforms for
individual commercial customers using a completely modular set of components that can be assembled in
pretty much any configuration the client requires depending on their application. That modularity
also allows Sinn Power to customize the platform layout according to the particular
climate conditions of a given location. So in regions where there's a lot of sun but not so
much wave or wind the platforms can be configured to be mostly PV modules and in areas with a lot
of wind and wave but not so much sunshine the installation can be designed to run mostly on
wind turbines and wave power. The construction might look very basic and simple but it's
actually the result of five years of intensive development and testing to achieve the optimal
combination of strength, durability, modularity and, very importantly, logistical practicality.
The whole system starts with these air-filled buoyant pipes made from marine grade aluminium
that are fully sealed with welded caps and which float horizontally on the water to
support the platform. Each pipe can either be 6 or 12 meters long weighing up to 370 kilograms.
Now that's obviously not something you could just pick up and walk around with
but it is something that's very easily manipulated with forklifts and small lifting equipment
and transportable on the back of a truck. Onto that subframe are mounted six metre
high vertical supports, again made from marine grade aluminium, with stainless steel connectors,
to produce what Sinn Power call a super stiff structure able to withstand the buffeting of
the ocean and avoid corrosion from the salt water. Next come the floats which have to be very tough
of course because these things will be the first element of the structure that gets hit by incoming
waves, so they need to be sufficiently robust to stand the test of time. Sinn Power's patented
design is a polyethylene structure constructed in segments like a cake with a central metal
connection hub. Once all the wedges are connected the final float has a diameter of 3.2 metres and a
lifting capacity of 6 tons. So four floats fixed together with the structural pipes and uprights
gives you the smallest basic unit module. Then it's just a matter of duplicating the modules
to whatever size is required. But the floats don't just provide buoyancy for the platform they can
also be connected to lifting rods connected to the main structure that allows the floats to move up
and down with the swell of the water. The lifting rods are then connected to a computer-controlled
electronic bi-directional power generator rated at five kilowatts. All of that assembly
can be added at any stage even after the entire platform has been installed. So if a customer
finds they need more power they can simply add more floats and powertrains to the framework.
The second generation-component of the modular system is wind power. At any junction where
wave power is not being deployed a 12 meter tall mast made of the same maritime aluminium
can be attached at the top of the frame to support a storm proof continuous duty wind
turbine supplied by a Munich-based partner company called Luvside. The great thing about these
turbines is they're designed to utilize exactly the same electronic power generators as the wave
system so the simplicity of the modular design is maintained. And of course last but not least
the result of the full construction is a large flat platform surface area onto which solar
panels can be assembled on top of lightweight 12 meter long maritime aluminium support struts
each capable of supporting one metric ton per meter length. The struts can be installed at
different levels to provide an angle for the panels if necessary. Each set of struts can
support a panel configuration of up to 72 cells with a peak generation capacity of 30 kilowatts.
It's important not to confuse this rigid offshore floating platform with the flexible floating
solar panels you may have seen on inland lakes. Instead of rolling with the gentle undulations of
an inland body of water, this system is designed to withstand the buffeting from offshore waves.
According to Sinn Power, who say they've conducted extensive testing in real world situations,
the height of the platform keeps the solar panels sufficiently out of the way
of large breaking waves which dramatically cuts down on salt spray which could otherwise hamper
the performance of the PV system. The same cross member struts can also support solid floors with a
low bearing rating of one tonne per square metre. That means the platform can be easily configured
to allow for other infrastructure, creating what the company describes as an industrial island.
What the platforms get used for is really only limited by the imagination of the end user,
but Sinn Power envisage all sorts of applications. Food processing could be an option for example,
maybe in combination with aquaculture and fish processing, with a platform docking point
to take produce to shore. Or the systems could simply provide vital power in remote parts of the
world like small island developing nations, most of which currently rely on very expensive and very
dirty diesel. A large configuration of platforms could act not only as a power source but also a
logistics hub for a group of islands where goods could be consolidated before being distributed
out. And the platforms would be extremely well suited to locations adjacent to mega cities on
coastlines all over the world. Space in those locations is at a massive premium for obvious
reasons so moving just offshore could be a very cost effective way of locating a power source,
perhaps for something like a data centre, providing computing and internet for the city,
or even at some point in the future for running electrolyzers to produce green hydrogen either for
heating or for aviation fuel to supply a local airport. But the core vision for Sinn Power,
and the reason why the German federal government have provided financial support for the project,
is to utilize the platforms as a supplement to existing large offshore wind farms that
are now quite commonplace in northern Europe and becoming more popular around the world.
These are typically massive installations at quite a distance from the coastline with huge cables to
bring the power back to land. In the winter when it's usually very windy these facilities
produce very large amounts of power, but in the summer when the wind is generally far less strong
the wind farms are much less useful. So these OHP platforms are planned to be configured with
wind and solar power and integrated into the wind farms to provide a more continuous power supply
and to optimize all the logistics of installing and maintaining these massive installations.
The platform modules themselves can be combined together up to a capacity of 10 megawatts and
the folks at Sinn Power have calculated that the power output of a typical large offshore wind farm
could be increased by almost a factor of 10, cutting the cost of power production
by a third. The whole rig is anchored down using yet another modular system of multiple
chains and concrete weights. That not only results in anchoring at multiple points,
but it also provides a bit of built-in security so that if one chain is breached for some reason
then you still have multiple anchor points intact. All the components are designed
to fit inside a 40-foot shipping container so they can easily be transported by road and sea
to their final location. Extensive testing has been taking place in Heraklion in Greece
and Sinn Power are already actively marketing their system to project developers worldwide.
So there we have it folks. If it works the way that Sinn Power claims it does, which of course
remains to be seen over a real world operational lifetime, then we might just have another example
of the sort of lateral thinking that would make my childhood hero Edward de Bono very proud. I'm
sure you'll have your own views on whether this kind of installation could really be viable,
so if you do, or if you work in the industry and you can share your experience and knowledge,
then why not jump down to the comments section below and leave your thoughts there.
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