Offshore wind is a growing market worldwide. Wind Europe expects offshore wind to cover up to 11 percent of the total electricity demand in EU by 2030. Based on abundant resources, technology development and economies of scale; floating wind turbines are expected to be the preferred technology offshore from the mid-2020s, with LCOE forecast of 80 Euro/MWh by 2030.
Global offshore wind capacity has more than trebled in the past five years to 14,4 GW in 2016 and is forecasted to reach 40 GW in five years and over 60 GW in the next ten years. Additionally, capital and operational expenditures are forecasted to grow by 15-20% p.a. to around EUR 250 billion over the next ten years. This represents a market approaching EUR 25 billion p.a.
However, the main challenge for the entire wind industry is to reduce costs, both CAPEX and OPEX, in order to be competitive with other energy sources. This implies a need for industrialization of the supply chain of installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommission of the wind farms.
Offshore Kinetics has developed a game changing offshore floating wind turbine support structure that will optimise assembly, installation, commissioning, operation & maintenance and decommissioning of wind farms. The concept is expected to be considerably more cost efficient than the leading models on floating wind turbines in the world today.
Introducing technical and operational standards for the future, Offshore Kinetics’ overall objective is to upscale, demonstrate and commercialize our solution in the offshore wind market.
Taking both technological and commercial viability into consideration, the innovation project has two specific objectives:
- Full scale testing of the entire process of assembly, installation, commissioning, operations & maintenance, with expected outcome to:
○ Validate the support structure, and subsequently demonstrate that it meets the requirements set by the market.
○ Prove and document cost savings based on actual costs.
- Establish a partnership with an industrial actor that in the short term has the financial and administrative capacity to execute a full scale verification test, and in the longer term could bring the WTSS to new offshore wind park projects in Europe and beyond. The expected outcome is a partnership with i.e. a developer/operator, turbine manufacturer or transport company that will optimize the patented solution to design, systems and methods.
The short-term objective, covered in the SME Instrument phase 1, was to perform a feasibility study to assess both the business and technology viability to reach the long-term objectives mentioned above.
Specific objectives of the feasibility study were:
- F1 Market and competitor analysis
- F2 Cost assessment
- F3 Business plan development
- F4 IPR analysis and novelty verification/network patent analysis
- F5 WTSS Design verification.
- F6 Plan for phase II development.
The feasibility study concludes that Offshore Kinetics should pursue the business opportunity and prepare a funding strategy, development plan and “go to market” strategy to target the proposed beachhead market.
