Energy variability and tilt angle in hybrid offshore wind − solar PV farms
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Published Version
Date
2026-09-11
Authors
Moore, Josh
Iglesias, Gregorio
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd
Published Version
Abstract
Hybrid offshore renewable energy systems have great potential for realising infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and economic synergies – not least the smoothing of the variability of the energy output, which reduces the balancing costs. The focus of this work is the hybridisation of existing offshore wind farms with floating solar photovoltaic energy and, more specifically, the effects of the tilt angle of the solar photovoltaic installation on this variability, which have not been investigated so far. Two operational offshore wind farms, Westermost Rough (United Kingdom) and South Fork (United States), are selected as case studies. The analysis is conducted across three temporal resolutions: hourly, daily, and monthly. The variability of the energy output is analysed across 121 different tilt angles, ranging from 0 to 60 degrees in 0.5-degree increments. The following key results are obtained: (i) on an hourly timescale, the optimal tilt angle is 0°, though this results in a lower energy yield; (ii) on a daily timescale, the optimal tilt angle was below the magnitude of the latitude of Westermost Rough and South Fork, respectively; (iii) on a monthly timescale, the optimal tilt angles were also lower than the latitude of the two sites, respectively; and (iv) across all timescales, the level of energy output smoothing for different tilt angles has a notable impact on the overall capacity factor of the hybrid offshore wind-solar farm. Importantly, for any tilt angle, the hybridisation of the offshore wind farms through a floating solar photovoltaic system significantly smoothed the energy output.
Description
Keywords
Angle of tilt , Balancing costs , Energy variability , Hybrid farm , Offshore renewable energy , Wind – solar , [EngineeringArchitecture] , [MaREI]
Citation
Moore, J & Iglesias, G 2026, 'Energy variability and tilt angle in hybrid offshore wind − solar PV farms', Energy Conversion and Management: X, vol. 32, 102286, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecmx.2026.102286