Technip Energies Acquires 16.3% Stake in Floating Wind Tech Start-up X1 Wind
Engineering and technology group, Technip Energies has acquired a 16.3% stake in X1 Wind, a startup that has designed "an innovative and disruptive" offshore wind turbine floater.
Technip Energies is the lead investor in this funding round, which also counts with the participation of the European Commission-owned European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, advised by the European Investment Bank (EIB), and some of X1 Wind’s previous shareholders. Under the terms of the agreement, Technip Energies will hold two of the nine seats on X1 Wind’s Board of Directors.
Also, Technip Energies will support X1 Wind’s management through its participation in joint technical and commercialization committees and bring its engineering capabilities, offshore project execution and industrialization know-how to carry the X1 Wind concept to commercial application, with the aim to include the pioneering technology in Technip Energies’ floating offshore wind (FOW) offering.
The X1 Wind FOW concept is based on a Tension Leg Platform (TLP) mooring, with a weathervaning system and a downwind turbine. The design allows for a lighter floater design with a significantly reduced steel requirement and for a more efficient and restricted mooring system minimizing the impact on seabed.
It is scalable for turbines of 15+ MW, facilitating cost-effective deployment for large-scale offshore wind farms. Technip Energies and X1 Wind will collaborate on the development of the first commercial-scale demonstrator, as well as the related industrialization and commercialization plans of the technology.
Willy Gauttier, Technip Energies Vice President for Floating Offshore Wind, said: "With this investment and collaboration, Technip Energies demonstrates that it is not only addressing today’s floating offshore wind market with its current semi-submersible technology, it is also preparing the future with this promising design to become the leader of the next generation of floaters. Thanks to our offshore project execution and experience in developing technical concepts all the way to commercialization, we are confident that X1 Wind will be a great addition to Technip Energies’ portfolio of technology solutions in the near future.”
Alex Raventos, Co-founder and CEO of X1 Wind, said: “Our innovation capacity and disruptive light-weight technology, coupled with Technip Energies’ decades of experience in the offshore sector and proven track-record implementing the first floating wind projects, brings a perfect alliance to develop the next generation of floating wind technology, necessary to lower the costs of the floating wind sector to meet the ambitious targets and contribute to a carbon-neutral but competitive energy mix.”