The startup PV NEXUS has launched the first unit of an innovative pilot project for floating solar energy in Spanish marine waters. Specifically, PAV hosted this first prototype of floating solar energy.

Joan Calabuig, President of the Port Authority of Valencia, said: “Valenciaport will support all innovations such as this one, which is a clear step towards decarbonisation and energy transition.

“This is a further step and obviously has our full support to be able to promote the change of energies in the ports that will help us to achieve the objective of zero emissions in 2030.”

According to Mohamed Amine Koubaa, Founder and Development Director of PV NEXUS, expressed that the PVFOILX1-PORTS project seeks to investigate the preliminary technological feasibility of a novel floating photovoltaic modular system that would provide clean energy via solar panels installed on seawater.

After months of design, numerical calculations, and production in the Structures Laboratory of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s ETSI de Caminos, Canales, y Puertos (Retiro Building), the first phase of experimentation has been released in the waters of the Valencian port.

To that purpose, a small-scale prototype with a power of less than 1 kilowatt-peak (kWp) has been erected and is being remotely monitored and controlled via Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

The project is part of the Ports 4.0 programme of the Port of Valencia and the Valenciaport Foundation.

According to PAV, the project’s purpose is to actively promote and incorporate disruptive or incremental innovation as an element of competitiveness, efficiency, sustainability, safety and security in the Spanish public and private logistics-port sector to facilitate its transition towards the ‘4.0 economy’.

This month, PAV announced that 42 private institutions voluntarily aligned themselves with the ‘Valenciaport 2030 Zero Emissions’ initiative.

Source: Port Technology

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	Issue 87 of Robban Assafina (Sept./ Oct. 2023)