Floating Wind News

Preparing for industrialization, the floating offshore wind industry is tackling its unique mooring and cabling challenges.The idea of keeping floating offshore wind platforms in place using dynamic positioning has been considered. The trouble is: it could take up to 80% of the electricity generated by the turbine to do it.So, as Maersk Supply Service said a few years back: In a field of 100 turbines with 4-5 mooring lines each, there is going to be a lot of subsea “spaghetti.” It’s not a problem unique to the industry…

North Star has launched a partnership which includes MO4, Principle Power, SMST, Vard, and Voith Group to fast-track the development of high-performance operations and maintenance ships tailored for floating offshore wind farms.The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish a dedicated working group of industry experts to help fast-track the design and testing of a new service operations vessel (SOV) concept.Together, the six organizations have committed to developing a detailed…

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has decided to delay the offshore wind energy auction planned for potential lease areas offshore Oregon due to insufficient bidder interest at this time.On August 29, 2024, the Department of the Interior announced the Final Sale Notice (FSN) for offshore wind leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Oregon following engagement through the Oregon Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force.The FSN set an auction date for October 15…

A group of industry specialist companies has achieved a world first for the wind industry, with a major component exchange (MCE) being performed on an offshore floating wind turbine while it remained on site at the Scottish Kincardine offshore wind farm, located south east of Aberdeen.The new, more cost-effective, process was delivered through a collaboration of technologies and expertise from LiftOff, Vestas, Dragados, Kincardine Offshore Windfarm Limited (KOWL) and Cobra Wind…

Mainstream Renewable Power, the pureplay global wind and solar company majority-owned by Aker Horizons, has announced that KF Wind, a 1,125MW floating offshore wind project being developed off the coast of Ulsan, South Korea, has secured the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approval from the Ministry of Environment for the totality of the two-phase project. The Award of the EIA is a key milestone for the development of the two-phase floating offshore wind project, advancing towards construction.The EIA comprises the first phase…

TotalEnergies has launched a pilot project consisting of a floating wind turbine to supply renewable power to the Culzean offshore platform in the UK North Sea.Culzean is a high-pressure, high-temperature gas condensate field located in Block 22/25a in the East Central Graben area.The 3MW floating wind turbine will be located 2km west of the Culzean platform, 220km off the eastern coast of Scotland. This turbine, expected to be fully operational by end 2025, will supply around 20% of Culzean’s power requirement…

The Biden administration on Monday issued an offshore wind lease to the state of Maine for a small project that will demonstrate floating turbine technology off the U.S. East Coast.The lease area covers 9,700 acres (3,920 hectares) and is 28 nautical miles (52 kilometers) from shore, an area that could accommodate up to 12 floating offshore wind turbines that could generate about 144 megawatts of electricity.Floating wind is widely acknowleded as the future of offshore wind, as it is able to tap stronger winds further from shore.

Examining similarities and differences between the deepwater oil & gas and the emerging floating wind segment.There has been much excitement around the potential for the offshore wind industry to access deeper water sites through the deployment of floating wind technology.Further, there has been much discussion around the development and deployment of disruptive technologies to leverage the opportunity of floating wind. However, in the short- to medium-term, there is insufficient…