HelioRec: The Floating Solar Power Plant

HelioRec is a clean energy company providing a solar energy-based solution for power generation and domestic plastic waste recycling. With commitment and passion, the company is developing a solar power plant which can be successfully implemented in countries with:

• Big amount of mismanaged plastic wastes;
• High-density of population;
• Lack of renewable energies.

The idea of the project consists of three steps:

1. Construction of floating structures based on recycled domestic plastic, high density polyethylene (HDPE), for example, containers, construction pipes, food packages, interior items etc.;
2. Installation solar-panels on floating structures; and
3. Deploy this power plant on the sea near marine ports, remote locations, islands, fish and algae farms.

The main purposes of the project:

• Managing plastic waste through using recycled plastic for the floating structures;
• Saving land space by deploying the power plant on the sea; and
• Producing “green” electricity from the mature technology – solar energy

HelioRec’s team believes that all scientific world should be focused on the Asian countries such as China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, because they are bigger players and contributors to the global problems (CO2 emissions and mismanaged plastic). For example, Asia produce 57% of total CO2 emissions in comparison with Europe - only 7%, China produce 30% of all plastic in the World, and people recycle only 5-7% of plastic and if people will follow the same tendency in 2050 in the Ocean will be more plastic than fish.

Preliminary design of floating structures was made and it will be special sandwich panels, the interior of which could contain a high ratio of recycled plastics, HDPE. The surfaces (top and bottom) of the floating structures have to be made of stable material like steel or similar resistant material. Below the floating structures will be “air cushions” and it have to be made from high quality plastic fabric. The upper section of „air coushines“ contains air that cannot escape, which enables the floating structure to float; however, the air has direct contact with the water below. There is no closed „air cushion“, but rather an air column over the water which acts as a shock absorber. The flexible side walls of the floating structures only absorb small, horizontal forces. This concept was proposed by Technical University Wien. Now we are lookign forward to collaborate with TU Wien.

Once the design of floating structure will be finalized mooring and cables lines will be adopted to each individual project with a big help from WavEc company who has huge experience with offshore technologies.

The first “scratch” of the floating solar power plant was made, Sesam software (structural and hydrodynamic analysis of vessels and offshore structures It is based on the displacement formulation of the Finite Element Method) and WAMIT software (the set of tools available for analyzing wave interactions with offshore platforms) were utilized for the computations.

The pilot project will be installed in Yantai Port, China with support CIMC-Raffles company.

The HelioRec is unique project and in the nearest future sub-activities will be performed:

• Increase awareness about the plastic pollution;
• Change people mentality and consumption behaviour (goods and energy);
• Governments laws about plastic production and green electricity;
• Optimize recycling process/garbage separation in every house, in every country etc.