Techno-Feasibility Assessment of a Floating Breakwater Concept for Supporting Marine Renewables in Deep Waters

Abstract

The previous research has proven that one of the fundamental requirements for ensuring increased profitability and economic competitiveness in offshore-based projects is co-locating different technologies within the same marine space. This paper presents a number of techno-feasibility analyses for floating offshore technologies for the Maltese Islands, located in the central Mediterranean Sea. The first part compares the feasibility between offshore floating solar photovoltaics with onshore-based systems, taking into consideration Malta’s average land rental price per square metre. The second part considers the use of a novel floating breakwater design that integrates energy storage and creates a sheltered water area for a multi-use marine park, thus introducing different revenue streams. The latter includes renting the sheltered marine space out to operators of floating solar farms, aquaculture cages and vessel berthing facilities, as well as the provision of energy storage services. It is found that the combined income from the multiple revenue streams from the multi-use marine park is still insufficient to justify the investment and that financial support from governments is essential to render the floating breakwaters viable.