PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF OFFSHORE MONO-PILE WIND TURBINE CO-LOCATED WITH FLOATING PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS IN SHARK BAY, AUSTRALIA

In recent years, as more offshore wind farms have been constructed, the possibility of integrating various offshore renewable technologies is increased. Using offshore wind and solar power resources as a hybrid system provides several advantages including optimized marine space utilization, reduced maintenance and operation costs, and relieving wind variability on output power. In this research, both offshore wind and solar resources are analyzed based on accurate data through a case study in Shark Bay (Australia), where bathymefric information confirms using offshore bottom fixed wind turbine regarding the depth of water. Also, the power production of the hybrid system of co-located bottom fixed wind turbine and floating photovoltaic are investigated with the technical characteristics of commercial mono pile wind turbine and photovoltaic panels. Despite the offshore wind, the solar energy output has negligible variation across the case study area, therefore using the solar platform in deep water is not an efficient option. It is demonstrated that the floating solar has a power production rate nearly six times more than a typical offshore wind farm with the same occupied area. Also, output energy and surface power density of the hybrid offshore windsolar system are improved significantly compared to a standalone offshore wind farm. The benefits of offshore wind and solar synergies augment the efficiency of current offshore wind farms throughout the world.