The Anonymous Widower

Floating Offshore Wind Could Reach Full Commercialisation By 2035, Research Says

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.

This is the sub-heading.

Floating offshore wind could reach full commercialisation by 2035, said 60 per cent of respondents in the latest research that was done by DNV, with 25 per cent believing it will be as early as 2030.

I’ll go along with that, but as a serial disruptive innovator, I believe full commercialisation could be earlier than 2027.

It will be for these reasons.

Capacity Factor

There is reason to believe from the figures from existing floating wind turbines, that the capacity factor is very good and could be higher than those of turbines with fixed foundations.

Wikipedia says this about the world’s first commercial floating offshore windfarm; Hywind Scotland.

In its first 5 years of operation it averaged a capacity factor of 54%, sometimes in 10 meter waves.

If other floating technologies show as good capacities as this, then the technology may well find it easier to attract finance.

Design

We have only seen a couple of designs deployed; Hywind and WindFloat.

There will be plenty more to come.

This visualisation shows five D-Floaters being transported on a ship.

Note.

1. D-Floaters are being developed by Bassoe Technology.
2. As many floats will be manufactured, a long way from their final mooring, why not make them easy to transport.
3. Other companies are developing floats that can be bolted or welded together from standard components.

I wouldn’t be surprised if one design came to dominate the market.

This might be a good thing, as it would surely speed up deployment of floating wind farms.

Construction And Installation

This video shows the construction and installation if Principle Power‘s, Windfloat prototype.

Note.

1. All the construction and assembly is done in a dock with a suitable crane.
2. This is much easier than doing it the assembly out at sea, as has to be done with turbines with fixed foundations.
3. I suspect that with the best design of float and turbine, high rates of turbine assembly can be achieved.
4. Health and Safety will prefer this type of assembly.

I suspect other floating wind turbines will be similarly assembled.

Suppose you were assembling 15 MW floating turbines at a rate of one per day, that would be a production rate of over 5 GW of turbines per year from just one dock.

Early Delivery Of Power

I suspect that to build a floating wind farm, one of the first things to be towed out would be the substation to which all the turbines will be connected.

• This could even be floating.
• I’ve seen floating sub station designs, that incorporate energy storage and hydrogen production.

Once the substation is fully-installed and tested, floating turbines could be towed out, anchored, connected to the substation and immediately start to produce electricity.

I have built a lot of cash-flow models in my time and I believe that one for say a 2 GW floating wind farm would be very friendly to proposers, investors and operators.

There’s A Lot Of Sea Out There!

And after nearly sixty years of offshore semi-submersible platforms in UK water, we now how to work in the conditions.

In ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, I said this, about the total capacity, that will be developed under the ScotWind leasing round.

• Adding up these fixed foundation wind farms gives a capacity of 9.7 GW in 3042 km² or about 3.2 MW per km².
• Adding up the floating wind farms gives a capacity of 14.6 GW in 4193 km² or about 3.5 MW per km².

Note.

1. You appear to get ten percent more capacity in a given area of sea with floating wind farms.
2. The energy density of floating wind farms is 3.5 MW per km².

I suspect investors will prefer the floating wind farms.

Lower Visibility

Floating wind farms will generally be further out to sea and less likely to be objected to, than installations nearer to land.

Maintenance And Updating

Floating wind farms can be towed into port for servicing and updating, which must ease the process.

Project Management

I believe that floating wind farms, are projects, that would benefit highly from good project management.

Sometimes, I wish I was still writing project management software and I am always open to offers to give my opinion and test anybody’s software in that area!

Finance

I can see that floating wind farms could offer better cash flows to investors and this will make them invest in floating wind farms at the expense of those with fixed foundations.

Conclusion

For all these reasons, but with my instinct telling me that floating wind farms could offer a better return to investors, I wouldn’t be surprised if floating wind farms came to dominate the market.

 

 

February 22, 2023 - Posted by AnonW | Design, Energy, Finance | D-Floater, Disruptive Innovation, Floating Wind Power, Principle Power, ScotWind Leasing, Wind Power, WindFloat