Recently, NET was awarded the title of “Excellent Material Supply Unit for the 2025 Full-Seawater Floating Photovoltaic Project of Qingdao Refining & Chemical Company” for its outstanding performance. Behind this honor lies the company's all-round excellent delivery in the Sinopec Qingdao Refining & Chemical full-seawater floating photovoltaic project.

Benchmark Project: Embarking on a New Journey of Offshore New Energy

The Sinopec Qingdao Refining & Chemical full-seawater floating photovoltaic project is of great significance. As Sinopec's first large-scale demonstration project of floating photovoltaic applied in a full-seawater environment, it has successfully broken through the land limitations of traditional photovoltaic power plants, innovatively integrated photovoltaic power generation with the marine environment, and opened up a brand-new path for domestic offshore new energy development.

Located in the Qingdao Refining & Chemical Hydrogen Energy “Production, Research & Utilization” Demonstration Park, the project covers an area of about 60,000 square meters with an installed capacity of 7.5 MW. NET undertook the entire construction and provided the advanced [NAS]® floating system. Designed to rise and fall synchronously with tides, the system greatly shortens the distance between PV panels and the water surface to only about 1/10 of that of traditional pile-mounted structures. Leveraging the cooling effect of seawater heat dissipation, it effectively improves power generation efficiency by 5%–8%.

Upon completion, the project has achieved remarkable results: it generates 16.7 million kWh of green electricity annually, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 14,000 tons, while cutting investment by approximately 10% compared with traditional pile-mounted PV systems. The success of this project marks a key breakthrough in China's marine new energy development and provides an important demonstration for the promotion of floating photovoltaic in full-seawater environments along coastal and shallow sea areas.

Recognition Earned: Strength Highly Acknowledged

During project implementation, NET demonstrated outstanding technical strength, efficient material supply capacity, and full-cycle high-quality services, thus winning the honorary title. This recognition highly affirms its technological breakthroughs and engineering practices in marine new energy, highlights its professionalism in ensuring safe and stable operation of PV systems under complex marine conditions, and sets a new industry benchmark for integrated “technology-materials-service” solutions for full-marine floating photovoltaic projects.

Technical Breakthroughs: Solving Full-Seawater Application Challenges

In full-seawater environments, PV systems face numerous challenges including seawater corrosion, biofouling, and tidal fluctuations. NET's R&D team rose to the occasion, carried out technical research, and upgraded and optimized the [NAS]® floating system, demonstrating strong technological innovation capabilities.

01 Customized Design with Excellent Performance

Enhanced Buoyancy and Stability: The R&D team innovatively optimized the floating body structure, greatly improving overall buoyancy to stably support PV modules in complex seawater environments. The floating body adopts an equal-height design for balanced stress distribution, and with a unique ear structure, it achieves firm connections, enhancing stability against tidal fluctuations and current impacts to ensure stable power generation.

Improved Corrosion and Biofouling Resistance: The team developed high-performance materials resistant to seawater salt spray corrosion. Through advanced material modification and metal surface treatment technologies, the system effectively withstands high-salinity and high-humidity marine erosion, reduces operation, maintenance and cleaning costs, ensures long-term efficient operation, and minimizes performance degradation.

02 Innovative and Mature Anchoring System

Innovative Design for Complex Marine Environments: The R&D team developed an underwater anchoring system capable of withstanding Category 13 gales and adapting to a 3.5-meter tidal range. Precise calculations and structural optimization ensure reliability under extreme conditions. Its mature design meets strict seawater environment requirements and reduces investment costs by about 10% compared with traditional pile-mounted PV, delivering significant economic benefits to investors.

Proven Reliability through Classic Cases: The anchoring system performed excellently in practical applications, successfully withstanding Typhoon Yagi (Category 17) in Hainan, fully proving its stability in strong wind conditions. This successful case provides solid safety assurance for PV projects in coastal and shallow sea areas, reassuring investors and operators.

03 Ingenious Design for Special Environments

To address long-term wave action and potential icing in seawater environments, the R&D team adopted a micro-motion telescopic design for floating body connections. This design allows the floating bodies to expand and contract appropriately under wave impacts and low-temperature icing, effectively avoiding fatigue caused by prolonged wave action and extrusion deformation of floating arrays due to ice expansion and contraction, ensuring safe and reliable operation and extending service life.

04 Long-Lasting Durability for Solid Support

Through material innovation, structural optimization, and anti-corrosion design, the service life of the [NAS]® floating system exceeds 25 years. It remains safe and reliable under severe conditions such as long-term full-seawater erosion and extreme weather, laying a solid foundation for long-term stable operation of PV projects and reducing downtime losses and extra costs caused by system replacement or maintenance.

Core Strengths: Patent-led, Premium Materials

The [NAS]® floating system has achieved remarkable success in water-surface photovoltaic applications, with more than 100 patents granted. Its core advantage lies in NET's self-developed virgin HDPE material, which perfectly adapts to various application scenarios with outstanding weatherability and corrosion resistance, while achieving key breakthroughs in cost control, making it an ideal choice for PV projects in complex water environments such as coastal and shallow sea areas.

Future Outlook: Engaging in Global New Energy, Contributing Chinese Strength

The successful commissioning of this project strongly proves the reliability and advancement of the [NAS]® floating system and fully demonstrates NET's profound strength in technological innovation and industry leadership. Looking ahead, NET will uphold a reverent mindset, focus on innovation, stand at the forefront of the industry, and actively participate in the global new energy sector. With Chinese wisdom and strength, the company will inject strong impetus into energy transition and sustainable development, and write a more brilliant chapter.