Integrated Designs for Future Floating Offshore Wind Farm Technology

Project Information

INF4INiTY

Grant agreement ID: 101136087

DOI

10.3030/101136087

EC signature date 21 November 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 5 994 964,00

EU contribution

€ 5 994 964,00

Coordinated by

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET BRAUNSCHWEIG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INF4INiTY (Integrated Designs for Future Floating Offshore Wind Farm Technology)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The European Horizon project, Integrated Designs for Future Floating Offshore Wind Farm Technology (INF4INiTY), brings together 13 industry and academic partners to develop and advance technologies for the next generation of floating offshore wind farms (FOWF), while helping to protect the ocean environment and optimise the use of marine space. In order to reach the ambitious goals set out in the updated SET Plan — 60 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 450 GW by 2050 — more countries have incorporated offshore wind development into their marine spatial planning. However, this ambition conflicts with the EC’s goals to protect the ocean environment. Indeed, the environmental impact of offshore wind is acknowledged as a weakness in the JRC status report. The overarching goal of INF4INiTY is to deliver impactful nature-inclusive design (NID) innovations for FOWF to foster their positive environmental impact. Specifically, it provides NID innovations for the subsea components: (1) an innovative NID for gravity anchors and the associated scour protection (GASP) system, and (2) an innovative artificial reef structure (ARS) combined with the floating structure of an FOW turbine. To achieve this, the following objectives have been defined:

1. Front-end engineering designs (FEED) and NID integration: to design, construct, and test NID innovations for future FOWFs under the aspects of sustainability and circularity.
2. TRL5 FEED validation: To validate the innovative NID features for future FOWFs in relevant large scale environments.
3. Environmental and engineering performances: to increase the “environmental” performance of FOW systems (increase in biodiversity with reference to base case of typical foundation structures), while increasing their “engineering” performance (resist future environmental load conditions).
4. Efficient marine space utilization: To improve the efficient use of the marine space by integrating farm layout planning in the innovative NID, thereby balancing the area efficiency with the demands of natural habitats.
5. Techno-environomic framework and life-cycle assessment: To contribute to the reduction of LCoE and to increase the sustainability by ensuring circularity in the design.
6. Pathways to commercialisation: To provide pathways to commercialisation (financing, certification, O&M, offshore logistics, etc.) for the individual and integrated sub-sea NID innovations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Objective 1 - FEED and NID integration:

1. FEED for the gravity anchor and floating substructure is on-going with a design freeze of floater design for the TRL5 FEED experimental campaign.
2. Implementation of the NID features in preliminary FEED designs has started.
3. A database of target species and generic NID solutions for the Scottish, Baltic, and Adriatic seas has been compiled.
4. The initial drafts of the 'Design Guidelines for INF4INITY Innovations' and the 'NID Catalogue for FOW Applications' have been completed.

Objective 2 - TRL5 FEED validation:

Preliminary designs for the FEED of the GASP and the floating substructure have been achieved.

Objective 3 - Environmental and engineering performance studies:

1. A comprehensive characterization of metocean conditions has been conducted for the Scottish, Baltic, and Adriatic Seas. Site-specific design load cases (DLCs) are derived from historical data. The development of DLCs for future scenarios, along with the implementation of clustering techniques, is near completion.
2. The soil sampling campaign in the Scottish, Baltic, and Adriatic seas is almost complete.
3. Small-scale physical experiments to characterize the seabed response around anchors have been carried out.
4. Numerical models of seabed liquefaction around anchors are in development.
5. Fundamental studies (numerical and experimental) of the interaction between flow and marine growth are currently underway
6. Scaled FEED model of the floating substructure designed and commissioned.
7. Preliminary numerical studies of floater hydrodynamics under operational and extreme conditions have begun.

Objective 4: Efficient marine space utilization:

The preliminary layout optimization considering fixed bottom OWT has been carried out for the Scottish, Baltic, and Adriatic seas.

Objective 5: Techno-environomic framework and life-cycle assessment:

Substantial progress towards developing an integrated techno-environomic assessment framework for future FOWFs has been made during the reporting period. The main progress is:

1. The Socio-Economic and Environmental Impact (SEEI) mathematical model is almost finalized.
2. The Installation, O&M, and decommissioning mathematical models are in their final stages of development.
3. The enhanced LCoE model is nearing completion.
4. Development of the holistic techno-environomic optimisation framework and decision-making process that brings together the technical, environmental, social and economic outputs has started.

Objective 6: Pathways to commercialisation:

To ensure that the results of the INF4INiTY project are adopted and expanded beyond its lifetime, the consortium implemented the following actions by the end of the reporting period:

1. Design and implementation of a comprehensive strategy for communication, dissemination, and knowledge transfer strategy via the Communication, Dissemination, and Knowledge Exchange Plan.
2. Implementation of stakeholder engagement activities fostering two-way knowledge exchange with key stakeholder groups. A stakeholder engagement plan has been delivered (126 stakeholders by the end of the reporting period (M16)).
3. Delivery of the initial exploitation plan, setting out target audiences, key exploitable results (KERs), intellectual property rights (IPR) status, market opportunities and resource needs.
4. Hosted the first external expert advisory board meeting to gather feedback on project progress and objectives.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results and their potential identified impact during the first periodic report are:

- New Approaches to Floating Platforms, Anchoring Systems and Scour Protection: INF4INITY offers the first fully integrated FOW system that combines a TLP floater, gravity anchor, and scour protection with site-specific NID features from the conceptual phase till FEED level.

- Offshore Wind Holistic Techno-Socio-Environomic Framework: A holistic techno-environomic framework has been developed that integrates the technical, economic, environmental, and social aspects of FOW projects. The tool covers the full lifecycle — manufacturing, installation, O&M, and end-of-life — with sensitivity to site-specific metocean conditions, maintenance strategies, and logistical constraints (e.g. vessel limits, port infrastructure, component stock).

- Nature Inclusive Designs Catalogue for FOW Applications: There are general design aspects that can be incorporated into general NID to promote biodiversity and biological productivity across regions. As the major impact of the NID catalogue, it is estimated that the catalogue (the know-how presented in it) will potentially make its way into the engineering applications via written material on which the applications are based (codes, standards, certifying authority documents, legislative documents, etc.) In the longer timespan, this catalogue will serve for NID features to become an integral and indispensable part of OWF planning and design.

Conceptual sketch of FEED for the floating substrucutre.

Conceptual sketch of FEED of GASP for Anchor-2B concept.