Floating Solar PV Mooring Structural Loading 2026 — PatSnap Eureka
Floating Solar PV Mooring & Structural Loading
FPV mooring technology is accelerating from protected inland reservoirs into nearshore and offshore marine environments where structural loading demands are substantially more severe. This dataset covers 60+ patent and literature records spanning 2010–2026.
Engineering Stability for Floating Solar Arrays
Floating solar PV mooring technology addresses how buoyant PV arrays maintain positional stability under dynamic environmental loading while avoiding fatigue failure, anchor pullout, inter-array collision, and catastrophic mooring line rupture. The field spans five core sub-domains: mooring line geometry and material selection, anchor and foundation design, load distribution and array connectivity, water level adaptation systems, and shared and hybrid mooring architectures.
Literature in this dataset confirms that wind load dominates static and dynamic structural response for inland FPV systems, while combined wave-wind-current loading governs nearshore and offshore design cases. A 2021 study on a 2.14 MW array built a 3D potential theory model with 124 mooring lines and found wind load to have the greatest influence on motion and mooring tension, with wave and current effects comparatively limited at that scale.
Publication dates in this dataset span from 2010 to 2026, indicating a field that transitioned from exploratory design to active commercial and regulatory maturation. Early filings from Luca Brodolini (WO, 2010) and Caldani S.R.L. (EP, 2011) established modular raft-based floating structures. The 2021–2026 period brought offshore push, shared mooring architectures, and intelligent structural health monitoring systems into the IP record.
Innovation in this dataset is moderately concentrated. Chinese state-affiliated engineering institutes and state-owned enterprises collectively account for approximately 15–18 filings in retrieved records, reflecting a coordinated national push into offshore FPV and pumped-storage FPV structural design. India ranks second by jurisdiction with approximately 10 filings, driven by individual inventors, IIT Bombay, and offshore FPV companies entering India’s coastal market.
Patent Activity Patterns in FPV Mooring Technology
Analysis of retrieved records reveals clear jurisdiction concentration and technology cluster evolution. China dominates by volume in this dataset while Western filers are comparatively sparse but targeting harsh-environment offshore deployment.
Patent Filings by Jurisdiction — Floating Solar PV Mooring (Dataset Snapshot)
China accounts for approximately 28 filings in this dataset (~47%), followed by WO/PCT at ~9, India at ~10, US at ~8, and EP at ~5 — reflecting the geographic concentration of FPV structural loading IP in retrieved records.
↗ Click bars to exploreFiling Activity by Phase — FPV Mooring Technology (Retrieved Records)
Filing activity in retrieved records grew sharply from 2021 onward, with the 2024–2026 phase showing the highest concentration of offshore and shared-mooring patents in this dataset, reflecting the offshore push signal.
↗ Click bars to exploreKey Deployment Environments for FPV Mooring Technology
FPV mooring structural loading technology is applied across four principal deployment environments in this dataset, each presenting distinct loading regimes and engineering design priorities ranging from large-amplitude reservoir fluctuations to offshore wave-wind-current combined loading.
Inland Reservoirs & Hydropower Impoundments
The largest application domain in this dataset, featuring pumped-storage hydro sites where daily water level fluctuations of 10–30 m are typical. Chinese assignees Changjiang Survey, PowerChina Huadong, and Three Gorges Corporation dominate this sub-domain. Core structural challenges include vertical mooring force variation with water level and the risk of catenary slack and snap loading at anchor-line contact points.
Reservoir FPVNearshore Marine & Coastal Zones
Nearshore deployment imposes combined wind-wave-current loading and requires compliance with maritime engineering codes. Ocean Sun AS (Norway) leads this domain with multi-jurisdictional FPV mooring patents specifically referencing typhoon loading scenarios. The Lampedusa offshore FPV case study (literature, 2022) quantified LCOE competitiveness of a moored offshore FPV system meeting the island’s full electricity demand. Solarisfloat (EP, 2020) and Cyprinus AS (WO, 2023) extend coverage into European nearshore waters.
Coastal DeploymentDeep-Water Offshore Wind-Solar Hybrid
The most technically complex application domain, integrating FPV with floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) infrastructure and sharing anchor points to reduce per-MW capital cost. The 2025 filing by National Energy (Donggang) New Energy Co. describes floating FPV platforms moored to jacket foundations of co-located offshore wind turbines via suction-bucket connections. Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute’s 2024 filing addresses reliability assessment of shared anchor point mooring systems for this environment.
Offshore HybridAquaculture & Multipurpose Water Bodies
IIT Bombay’s multipurpose floating structure (solar power and shade, WO/IN, 2022) targets fish pond and irrigation reservoir co-use, where shading reduces evaporation and supports aquaculture. TYT Temiz Yaratici Teknolojiler (Turkey, WO, 2022) and TPS Global (South Africa/WO, 2024) target similar multi-purpose deployments. Structural loading in these environments is lower, but biofouling and biological corrosion of anchors and mooring lines introduce long-term degradation challenges.
Multipurpose FPVLeading Patent Assignees in FPV Mooring — Dataset Snapshot
In this dataset, Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute Co., Ltd. is the highest-volume filer with 5 retrieved records, followed by Changjiang Survey, Kanotra Rahul, and Single Buoy Moorings Inc. each with 4 filings in retrieved records. Chinese state-affiliated institutes collectively account for approximately 15–18 of the ~60 retrieved records, reflecting concentrated national investment in offshore and reservoir FPV structural design.
Top Assignees by Filing Count — FPV Mooring (Dataset Snapshot)
↗ Click bars to exploreShandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting
The highest-volume filer in this dataset with 5 retrieved records spanning 2024–2026, all filed in China (CN). Key technology areas include reliability assessment of shared-anchor mooring systems, wind-solar complementary tensioned shared mooring line monitoring with real-time mechanical load sensors and automated alert thresholds, wind-solar fusion shared mooring with full-rotation thrusters, multi-floater shared mooring construction methods with sliding components (CN, 2026), and shared anchor point reliability evaluation. All retrieved records are active filings.
China — CNChangjiang Survey, Planning, Design and Research
This Chinese state-affiliated engineering institute holds 4 retrieved records in this dataset, filed in CN between 2018 and 2024. Technology areas include sliding-pulley water-level-adaptive anchor systems for high-amplitude reservoir sites (CN, 2018), an overall stability control system for water surface floating PV stations (CN, 2018), an anchoring system for high flow velocity environments (CN, 2018), and a multi-anchor buoy assembly mooring system with enhanced catenary effect to increase restoring force and reduce slack-taut impact loading (CN, 2024).
China — CNFive Directional Signals from 2024–2026 FPV Mooring Filings
The most recent filings in this dataset (2024–2026) concentrate on three emergent themes: wind-solar shared mooring reducing anchor count for co-located offshore wind and FPV; real-time structural health monitoring with automated alerting; and multi-floater shared mooring construction methods with sliding components that address load redistribution and phased-difference coupling amplification.
Real-Time Structural Load Monitoring Enters Commercial IP
The 2024–2025 filings from Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute introduce embedded mechanical load sensors on mooring lines combined with corrosion monitoring and environmental data ingestion, triggering automated alerts when loads exceed preset safety thresholds. This shift from passive structural design to active structural health management is analogous to the capability transition that occurred in offshore wind mooring engineering a decade earlier. The 2025 wind-solar fusion patent adds full-rotation thrusters automatically adjusted based on real-time load and current/wind speed data.
Jacket Foundation Shared Mooring for Offshore Wind-Solar Co-Location
The 2025 filing by National Energy (Donggang) New Energy Co., Ltd. (CN) describes floating FPV platforms moored to the jacket foundations of co-located offshore wind turbines, with suction-bucket connections providing the anchor interface. This architecture allows FPV deployment without independent seabed anchors in zones where jacket foundations already exist, substantially reducing marginal installation cost. Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute’s 2024 reliability assessment patent addresses cascading anchor failure risks in shared anchor point configurations.
Catenary vs. Elastomeric Mooring: Design Tradeoffs for FPV Systems
Click any row to explore further.
| Dimension | Catenary / Chain-Based Mooring | Elastomeric / Synthetic Tension-Controlled Mooring |
|---|---|---|
| Restoring force through line weight and geometry; line conforms to hanging curve shape | Restoring force through elastic elongation; near-constant tension maintained regardless of water surface position | N/A |
| Limited; large water level swings introduce slack and risk of snap loading at catenary base | High; spring-loaded winding, pulley-slider, or elastic rope systems designed explicitly for 10–30 m amplitude reservoir sites | N/A |
| Present if line goes fully taut under extreme conditions; mitigated by catenary geometry under normal operations | Elastic rope fatigue identified as principal failure mode; overload protection via flexible-sleeved cable in Huadong Institute system (CN, 2023) | N/A |
| Pure chain, hybrid chain-polyester, hybrid chain-HMPE, multi-segment with clump masses | Elastic ropes, HDPE ropes, spring-loaded winders, reverse-catenary anti-catenary cable configurations | N/A |
| Hybrid chain/HMPE reduces mean mooring tensions vs. all-chain but introduces larger heave and pitch motions per literature in this dataset | Near-constant tension reduces motion amplitude variation; spring winder on Korea Electric Power fixture device (KR, 2015) automatically compensates for water level drop | N/A |
| Changjiang Multi-Anchor Buoy Assembly (CN, 2024); Ocean Sun Mooring of FPV Power Plants (WO, 2023); TotalEnergies OneChain All-Synthetic System (WO/EP, 2024) | PowerChina Huadong Water Surface PV Anchoring System (CN, 2023); Korea Electric Power Fixture Device (KR, 2015); Maarten Martinus Romijn Elastic Mooring (IN, 2024) | N/A |
| Established for nearshore and offshore; catenary mooring patent for multiconnected FPV (CN, 2024) explicitly targets enhanced catenary effect for offshore conditions | Primarily applied to inland reservoir and intertidal zone environments; biofouling of elastic elements is a long-term degradation challenge in offshore settings | N/A |
Frequently Asked Questions: Floating Solar PV Mooring Structural Loading
According to literature in this dataset, wind load dominates static and dynamic structural response for inland FPV systems. Combined wave-wind-current loading governs nearshore and offshore design cases. A 2021 study on a 2.14 MW array with 124 mooring lines confirmed wind load had the greatest influence on motion and mooring tension at that scale.
In this dataset, China (CN) is the dominant jurisdiction, accounting for approximately 28 of the ~60 retrieved patent records — roughly 47% of all patent filings. India (IN) ranks second with approximately 10 filings, followed by WO/PCT at ~9, US at ~8, and EP at ~5.
The parabolic mooring system, filed first in India (2020) by individual inventor Kanotra Rahul and subsequently extended to US (2022, 2025) and WO (2022) jurisdictions, deploys a parabolic curve geometry by connecting adjacent main mooring line ends to shared buoys, with connecting lines distributing resolved load uniformly around the floater circumference. It is the most widely replicated load distribution approach in this dataset.
Shared mooring reduces anchor count, seabed survey scope, and marine installation vessel time by allowing multiple floating bodies — potentially from different energy generation technologies such as wind and solar — to share anchor points and mooring lines. The 2025 filing by National Energy (Donggang) New Energy Co. describes FPV platforms moored directly to offshore wind turbine jacket foundations via suction-bucket connections, eliminating independent seabed anchors.
According to Two China Three Gorges Corporation patents filed in December 2025, elastic rope fatigue is the principal failure mode in pumped-storage hydro reservoir environments, where large daily water level variations of 10–30 m are typical. Additional challenges cited in the dataset include catenary slack and snap loading, corrosion from freshwater sedimentation at anchor-line contact points, and vertical mooring force variation with water level.
Catenary mooring provides restoring force through line weight and geometry, minimizing snap loading under normal conditions but presenting slack risk under large water level swings. Elastomeric and tension-controlled systems use elastic ropes, spring-loaded winders, or pulley-slider mechanisms to maintain near-constant line tension across large amplitude water surface changes — designed explicitly for reservoir and intertidal zone environments. Literature in this dataset confirms hybrid chain/HMPE mooring reduces mean tensions compared to all-chain systems but introduces larger heave and pitch motions.
Data and insights on this page are based on a limited patent and literature dataset and are for reference only. Figures may not represent the complete technology landscape.