The TELWIND evolved Spar concept aims to reproduce the advantages of the different state-of-the-art concepts while avoiding their major disadvantages. It will profit from the inherent advantages of spar buoys in terms of stability, low wave sensitivity and independence from soil conditions, while economically overcoming their main acknowledged disadvantages, thus enabling a radical step forward for competitive deep offshore wind.On one side, the evolved spar configuration with suspended ballast tank will make it possible to achieve the same or even improved stability and motion control with significantly reduced material usage and with no need for very large drafts. But probably even more important will be the capacity to have a construction and installation process in which the complete system can be preassembled on the harbor and simply towed out to the site, therefore reproducing the most distinctive and relevant advantage of semisubmersible platforms.What is more, thanks to the telescopic tower and self-buoyant upper platform, such a complete harbor preassembly will have limited height (<60m), width (<40m) and draft (<9m) even for 10MW+ turbines, which improves the capacity for work industrialization and ensures its scalability for the next generation of extremely large wind turbines based on largely available onshore means and infrastructure.TELWIND also profits from the proven structural efficiency and economy of precast concrete, a material particularly well suited for low-cost industrial production of repetitive units, which further enhances its unique capacity for an industrialized and scalable onshore preassembly, which is a key attribute for risk and cost reduction that no state-of-the-art solution could match.The project l provide highly-developed solution with the potential to qualitatively reduce the costs of deep offshore wind while simplifying the installation process, avoiding the dependence on any large auxiliary offshore crane or vessel, and allowing for industrialised on-shore focused construction and better risk control and mitigation.The TELWIND technology can significantly contribute to the industrialization capacity and cost competitiveness of an industry which is key to provide EU with the capacity to generate large enough amounts of locally sourced renewable energy, thus improving EU energy security and contributing to the gradual solving of global climate and energy challenges.
