Floating Wind Energy:

Opportunities & Risks

Tim Camp
August 2023

The Offshore Wind Consultants Photographer: Dock90. Courtesy of Principle Power owcltd.com
Outline

Introduction

The floating wind opportunity

Risks to realise

Risks to operate

Risks to maintain

Conclusions

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ABL Group: Service Portfolio

• Technical due diligence • Advance analysis & Marine surveys, Marine warranty survey Marine casualty support & Expert witness & litigation
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installation vessels • Well servicing

3
The ABL Group Family

Through targeted acquisition and organic growth, the ABL Group have
built a comprehensive family of branded energy and marine consultancy
companies offering services that are both complementary and
interconnected. This allows our business lines, branded service OWC Longitude Engineering

companies, and expertise to focus closely on delivering technical Project development services, owner’s engineering and Independent engineering, design and analysis services for the marine,
technical due diligence to the offshore renewables industry. renewables, oil and gas, defence and offshore infrastructure industries.
excellence in engineering and consultancy, loss prevention and loss
management.

East Point Geo

OSD-IMT
Expert Geoconsulting organization supporting all sectors; providing
Established in 1989, a specialist ship design house focused on
efficient client-focused deliverables including data assurance, ground
offshore support vessels and clean shipping technology.
models and quantitative risk assessment.

ABL Group
ABL Group is a leading global independent energy and marine
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concept development and consultancy for marine renewable energy.

Add Energy
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4
Global Partner, Local Expert

65

Offices

39

Countries

303**

Locations

>1500

People

5 * Includes subcontractors on 100% utilisation basis

** ABL locate many staff strategically at maritime and offshore hubs to be able to serve clients locally
Additional note: the 38 countries number is driven by our offices, in terms of locations where we have surveyors etc we cover 71 countries, a truly global footprint
ABL Group Offshore Wind Experience

> 5 0 F L O AT I N G P R O J E C T S

> 1 5 G W F L O AT I N G C A PA C I T Y

>330 OFFSHORE W IND PROJECTS

> 2 5 0 G W T O TA L O F F S H O R E W I N D C A PA C I T Y
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Floating wind – The very basics

Wind turbine

Tower

Platform/ Floater

Inter-array cable Tension Leg

Barge Semi- Spar
Mooring lines submersible Platform

Anchors

7
 The Floating Wind Opportunity

Photographer: Dock90. Courtesy of Principle Power

© 2012-2020 Offshore Wind Consultants Ltd 8
Floating wind - Why?

• Massive demand for clean

& secure energy sources
• Bottom-fixed offshore wind
has been hugely
successful
Offshore wind resource and potential wind capacity in EUROPE, USA & Japan
• Floating wind removes (Sources US NREL 2012; EWEA 2013; Marine International Consulting).
depth limitations
• Hopes of reproducing
North Sea O&G cost
reductions (& bottom-fixed
wind cost reductions)

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Floating wind - What’s been done?

• 225MW installed to
date (13 projects at
MW scale)
• Mostly single turbine
demonstrators
• Small demonstration
arrays now in
develoment
• Hywind Tampen is
currently the largest
array (88MW / 11
turbines)

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Floating wind – Timeline to Take-off

• A possible timeline of floating wind with major milestones

2010 - 2015 2020 - 2025 2025 - 2030 2030 - 2040

Prior 2000
Single prototypes Initial market Market develops The boom
Initial concepts

2007 2011 2017 2022 2028 203?

Hywind Windfloat 1 Hywind First commercial First commercial More than
Demo (2 MW) Scotland tender in France project 10 GW of
(2.3 MW) (5 x 6MW) (250 MW) commissioned floating
+ Commissioning of (>200 MW) wind
several precommercial
projects

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Floating wind is becoming mainstream

… as shown by the following non-exhaustive list of companies working publicly on

floating projects:

12
Floating wind - Pipeline and Forecast

• Tier 1
• UK
• France
• Ireland
• South Korea
• Japan
• Tier 2
• Norway
• USA
• Spain
• Italy
• Greece

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Floating wind - Pipeline and Forecast

14
 Risks to realise

© 2012-2022 ABL Group

 Cost of floating wind energy

• Commercial floating wind costs not yet demonstrated (225MW currently installed)
• Cost reduction of bottom-fixed offshore wind has been impressive – but will floating be able to replicate this?
• First CFD for floating wind in 2022: TwinHub (WaveHub site) £87.30/MWh (to be installed 2026/7)

Bottom-fixed (actual) Floating (forecast)

NREL Technical Report TP-6A20-67675 (Grid costs included) ORE Catapult “FOW – Cost Reduction Pathways to Subsidy Free”

16
 Cost of floating wind energy

• Floating wind was seen as a

“victim” of the success of fixed
offshore wind cost reduction.
• Today fixed offshore wind is
seen as the “champion” of
floating wind.
• Risk that cost-reduction
ambitions will not be realised.
• Mitigated in part by stepwise
developments:
• Single demonstrators
• Pre-commercial small arrays
• Commercial arrays >200MW

Source: https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/lbnl-1005717.pdf

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 Floater fabrication

• Industrialised manufacture of massive structures is

required. To achieve Scotwind 15GW build-out over 5
years would require one 15MW turbine every 2 days.
• Risk that fabrication facilities will not be able to achieve
the target built-out rate.
• Mitigations e.g. Stiesdal TetraSpar concept:

Saitec SATH concept

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 Port infrastructure to support project construction

• First generation prototypes constructed

in dry docks but quayside construction is
required for serial production.
• Requirements:
• Quayside length & water depth
• Quay strength (bearing capacity)
• Lay-down & wet-storage areas
• Crane capacity & availability
• Risk that ports & the wider supply chain
will not be able to support the target
built-out rate.
• Partly mitigated by port investments
(WindEurope estimates €6.5bn required
by 2030)
© PORT OF ESBJERG-CHRISTER HOLTE

19
Regulator delays & other supply chain constraints

4COffshore Floating Wind Progress Update H2 2022

20
 Risks to operate

© 2012-2022 ABL Group

Pace of wind turbine development

• Floating wind will drive the

development of larger turbines
(20MW units by 2030?)
• Turbine sales often agreed on
the basis of short durations of
prototype operations.
• Risk that current levels of
turbine reliability will not be
maintained.
• Leading OEMs achieve turbine
growth by scaling reliable
drive-train platforms –
providing some mitigation.

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Dynamic cables

• Dynamic cables connect the floating turbines to static cables

on the sea bed.
• Risks of cable damage are associated with:
• Events during cable installation
• Fatigue loading of cables resulting from floater motion and
hydrodynamic loading
• Joint or connector failure
• Marine growth
• Touch down point migration / cable abrasion
• Innovations (e.g. 66kV & aluminium conductors)
• Mitigations:
• Improved understanding of fatigue loading e.g. dynamic analyses
• Higher manufacturing quality – verified by cyclic testing
• Developments in dynamic bend stiffeners

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Moorings

• Failure of a non-redundant mooring system leading to

loss of station-keeping and:
• Possible subsequent mooring line failures
• Dynamic cable failure
• Collision with other assets on the sea bed and/or surface
• Loss of generating capacity Tension Mooring
Catenary Mooring
• Fewer mooring legs per structure? (TLP)
• Fewer & less congested installation operations
• More mooring legs per structure?
• Light → less expensive installation vessels
& safer operations
• Easier production Hywind Scotland Buchan Alpha
• High system reliability 3 mooring lines 10 mooring lines
total weight 1200t total weight 715t
• Possibly lower CAPEX

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Moorings

• Shared moorings
• New technology (including new anchor types)
• Single failure affects multiple assets

TotalEnergies Longitude Engineering

25
 Risks to maintain

© 2012-2022 ABL Group

Large component exchange

• Risk that major component failure could result in high

repair costs & long periods of downtime
• Tow-to-port (or sheltered water)
• Highly weather constrained operations
• Not suitable for all floater types
• Substantial downtime / loss of production

• Mitigating developments:
• Temporary Cranes
▪ Not a mature technology
▪ Turbine interfaces required
▪ Challenging lifting operations
• Motion-compensated heavy lift vessels
▪ Not a mature technology
Mammoet Offshore Wind Logistics
▪ Turbine agnostic
▪ Minimum set-up / disassembly required

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Conclusions

© 2012-2022 ABL Group

Conclusions

• The appetite & prize for commercial floating wind

projects are huge.
• Supply chain developments and demonstrated
competitive costs are key to realising ambitious
targets.
• Technical challenges require focus to prevent
failures which may otherwise stall a growing
industry.
• Innovations in O&M are needed – particularly for
major component exchange.
• The cost & scale of construction and operations
in further, deeper and harsher conditions will still
pose formidable challenges.

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Questions?

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