Italy is installing a large floating hybrid photovoltaic and wind power plant in the sea

A 540 megawatt (MW) hybrid floating wind and photovoltaic floating wind farm will be developed off the southern coast of Italy in the Ionian Sea.

Dutch-Norwegian solar company SolarDuck, Italian investment fund Arrow Capital and Italian developer New Developments are jointly developing the Corigliano project, which will be in the Gulf of Taranto, off the Calabrian coast of Corigliano-Rossano:

Offshore PV specialist SolarDuck, Italian investment fund Arrow Capital and Italian developer New Developments have signed an agreement to develop a 540 MW floating wind-solar project off the coast of Italy.

The hybrid marine plant will be located in the Gulf of Taranto, off the coast of Corigliano-Rossano, in Calabria. It will have 28 floating wind turbines with a cumulative capacity of 420 MWp and 120 MWp of floating photovoltaic energy.

The development is part of the Green Arrow Infrastructure of the Future Fund (GAIF) and is currently under permit with an estimated commercial operation date in 2028.

The project will feature SolarDuck’s elevated platform technology, which allows photovoltaic panels to be deployed in waves of significant heights, while maintaining a safe working environment for access and maintenance and minimizing environmental impacts.

“With the current momentum, we believe this is a unique opportunity for the marine renewables industry to help shape a favorable regulatory framework and facilitate the scale-up of OFPV,” said SolarDuck CEO Koen Burgers. “This is not only important for Italy, but also for other Mediterranean countries.”

SolarDuck presented its first demonstrator project in 2021. It deployed the 64 kW system at a coastal site on the Waal (Rhine) River, near IJzendoorn, the Netherlands.

Its floating panels hold the solar panels more than 3 meters above the water surface and are capable of withstanding coastal sea conditions and hurricane-force winds. The systems are optimized for offshore sites in estuaries and natural harbors, as well as nearshore sites.

Basic floating platforms are triangular structures measuring 16 meters x 16 meters x 16 meters. They resemble floating offshore wind platforms or floating oil platforms and can be flexibly connected to each other to form large plants.