AFLOWT aimed to accelerate market uptake of floating offshore wind in North West Europe. The region has some of the strongest wind and ocean resources in the world.
The biggest hurdles for floating wind development are:
- demonstrating cost-effective floating technologies at model and full scale,
- attracting investors and project developers to support and adopt the technology,
- creating a clear and supportive policy environment, and
- developing an active supply chain to meet the needs of the floating wind industry.
Overcoming these four challenges will enable a route to market for multi-GW deployments. AFLOWT partners worked together to overcome the hurdles to floating wind by:
- Supporting the development of five test sites for demonstrating floating technologies: AMETS, EMEC, MARIN, Wave Hub and MISTRAL. Test sites are essential for assessing and optimising new concepts and prototypes’ performance, reliability, and environmental impact. Thorough testing will allow developers to establish practices that help to reduce the LCOE of floating wind in the future.
- Engaging investors and project developers about technology investability: via a series of showcase events during the project. Read about the 2022 innovation tour in Nantes.
- Supporting the development of an active supply chain: an analysis of the existing technically capable suppliers in the NWE region was undertaken to identify gaps to competing in international market standards. The supply chain analysis revealed an overall well-developed supply chain across the entire NWE region, however there is a lack of resources or vendors for decommissioning. A comparison of the countries showed that Scotland is the most established country within NWE with respect to the supply chain for floating offshore wind development, followed by Germany and France, and the more landlocked countries (e.g. Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland) have less established supply chains.
- Publishing a Floating Offshore Wind Development Plan: providing a common vision for floating wind development across North West Europe. Download here.
AFLOWT has brought together a partnership with the mandate to, & objective of, educating investors & project developers, instigating policy change & developing fit for purpose technology.
AFLOWT accelerated the market uptake of floating offshore wind by supporting the development of test sites, supply chain, and a development plan for North-West Europe, by engaging project developers and investors.
The AFLOWT project has supported the offshore consent work for The Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site (AMETS) and the next stage of investment is to install offshore site markings and improve the MetOcean data sets (supported by IWES) to help FOW developers design machines appropriately for the site.
Through the AFLOWT project SEAI set up a grid-connected berth in AMETS with suitable conditions to test the floating wind. The following activities were carried out:
- Environmental surveys
- Environmental Impact Assessment Report
- Offshore Cable: A PIN (prior information notice) was issued to market. Philip Lee have been appointed to advise on legal and procurement aspects of construction contract. While Azorom have been appointed to advise on electrical aspects of site requirements and develop marine cable technical specifications.
- Grid Connection: culmination of long-term discussions with ESBN on modification for 10 MW grid connection.
AFLOWT supported the creation of a request for tender of a Floating LiDAr for offshore site marking and MetOcean data sets which will help improve FOW developers to design machines appropriately for the site.
Developing an interactive information portal outlining the characteristics of AMETS is required to attract technology developers. The AMETS online presence will give detailed up to date information to people across the world. It will consist of photographs, information, data sets detailing the characteristics and specifications of the test site. It will give them the confidence and reassurance required to choose AMETS as the correct location to test their device.
EMEC - As part of the AFLOWT project, EMEC concluded concept design for a new 100 MW floating offshore wind test and demonstration site and is aiming to secure a lease ~20 km west of Orkney. The proposed site will comprise six individual berths for turbines up to 20 MW rated capacity and will accommodate grid generation as well as power-to-X applications. With water depths of 80-95 meters, large waves and a mean windspeed of 10.7 m/s, the site will offer floating wind developers representative metocean conditions to those in ScotWind, Celtic Seas, INTOG, and future leasing rounds. The economic potential of the proposed demonstration site has been estimated at £690 million to UK economy.
Following concept design, AFLOWT supported the:
- Site development activities - Front End Engineering Design, site wide licencing and site surveys, grid connection, overall site delivery
- MetOcean data collection campaign linking in two horizontal LiDAR systems to gather detailed wind data which will inform the basis of design for future technologies testing at the site
Geophysical studies – out for procurement as at 8/8/23 – seascape / landscape / bathymetric studies and substation concept design. Next step design for Billia Croo floating test platform. Grid connection. FEBUS Optics has demonstrated a simultaneous distributed acoustic, strain and temperature monitoring over a complete month on EMEC’s subsea cables (at the tidal test site). Movement of the cable and temperature according to the production have been highlighted, showing the capacity of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors (DFOS) to monitor status of the power cable.
Results have also shown a sensitivity of DFOS to the mechanical forces applied on cables and especially on dynamic cables that are used for floating energy technologies. Axial strain transferred to the cable have been observed to vary according to the strength of tides.
These outputs are useful for floating wind developments and demonstrate a technology that can monitor dynamic cable. As it is one of the most critical parts in a floating technology, this monitoring can drastically help for Operation & Maintenance process.
MARIN- During the AFLOWT project, MARIN focused on improving its model testing facilities and methods, and digital twin technology.
The existing wind setup in the MARIN Offshore Basin is available to support high-fidelity testing of these larger turbines. To enhance the accuracy of the tests, a wireless measurement system was introduced, eliminating any effects from measurement cabling. MARIN’s digital twin framework for mooring systems was extended to improve operations. Additionally, MARIN developed and tested an open-source floater design for 20-25 MW turbines. Results have been made open source, assisting the industry in validating numerical models.
The digital twin framework was extended to include a link to the large-scale testing setup with the overall goal of improving operations at sea. The testing of the 20-25 MW open-source wind turbine was be carried out in cooperation with Fraunhofer IWES which contribute through simulation-based investigation of the influence of the turbine’s aeroelasticity on the floater motions.
The developed knowledge, improved model test setup, and enhanced model testing through an improved software-in-the-loop (SiL) approach helped the industry to de-risk large scale floating wind which is a main requirement to accelerate the market uptake of floating wind energy.
The floating wind market is developing rapidly. We see many new concepts for floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) floaters that support increasingly larger turbines. The present study designs range from 15 MW to 20 MW-class wind turbines. These designs are assessed with numerical tools, model tests and medium scale pilot tests in the ocean. For the next 10 years MARIN see that de-risking large scale floating wind is the main requirement to accelerate the market uptake of floating wind energy.
OPEN-C. In order to enable FOW developers to test their prototype, MISTRAL test site development progressed regarding:
- Test site design studies. Wind resource, metocean conditions, soil and environment characterisation - to feed grid connection civil works preparation, regulatory environmental studies and FOWT design case;
- Grid connection procurement contractualisation. Communication and users' consultation. MISTRAL Site front end engineering design (FEED), test site characterisation & DSO grid connection contract
Partners worked together to prepare and develop all offshore operations at the MISTRAL demonstration location, which will include aspects such as:
- Preparation of offshore installation procedures for efficient and cost-effective installation of the FOW platform.
- Installation of subsea cable from the onshore substation to the offshore subsea hub
- Installation and mooring of the floating offshore wind platform and turbine.
- Connection of offshore cable to onshore grid infrastructure close collaboration with SAIPEM, EMEC and Open Sea will be required throughout the installation phases to ensure that the turbine, cable, mooring, platform and all other offshore operations and integration of onshore and offshore aspects are completed safely.