Merganser is an offshore floating solar (OFS) demonstrator plant with an installed capacity of 520 kWp. This new and scalable concept includes six interconnected platforms, which are designed for the extreme storm conditions occurring in the North Sea. This includes waves occurring once every 50-years reaching as high as 13,5 meters.

RWE, is a project partner to the Merganser pilot and a strategic partner to SolarDuck. The supplier partners for Merganser include companies such as Norsk Hydro, Damen Shipyards and others that are all setting standards to build up the offshore floating solar industry. The platform floaters will be manufactured at a Damen Yard in Poland, while assembly takes place at a port site in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

The pilot period will last 2-3 years and will take place at the offshore test site North Sea Farmers, which is located 12 km off the coast from The Hague, in the Netherlands. The test site offers SolarDuck a realistic operational environment to test Merganser’s North Sea design capabilities.

Merganser will be an operational laboratory for SolarDuck, which together with consortium partners TU Delft, TNO, MARIN and Deltares will gather relevant data, such as platform motions, energy output and life below the water surface. This will allow TNO to make a validated digital twin of the concept and Deltares to gain insight on the ecological effects of offshore floating solar energy.