Project description
Optimising floating wind farms in deep waters
Installing, operating and maintaining marine wind turbines becomes more difficult and more expensive as water depth increases. The EU-funded FLOTANT project aims to build and demonstrate a scale model of an offshore floating platform to support a wind turbine in deep waters. The newly designed components will include a hybrid concrete-plastic platform, optimised mooring and anchoring systems, high-performance lightweight power cables, and a high-tech monitoring system for operation and maintenance. The project will further assess the technological, economic, environmental and social impact of the floating platform. Ultimately, it will contribute to the advancement of renewable technologies, and is estimated to reduce future capital and operational expenses by more than 50 %.
Objective
Many elements of an offshore wind farm become more expensive as depth increases: mooring, anchoring and dynamic cables are the most obvious. However, deep water areas also pose additional challenges for installation and O&M strategies. FLOTANT project aims to develop an innovative and integrated Floating Offshore Wind solution, optimized for deep waters (100-600m) and to sustain a 10+MW wind turbine generator, composed by: a mooring and anchoring system using high performance polymers and based on Active Heave Compensation to minimise excursions, a hybrid concrete-plastic floater and a power export system with long self-life and low-weight dynamic cables. The project includes enhanced O&M strategies, sensoring, monitoring and the evaluation of the techno-economic, environmental, social and socio-economic impacts.
The prototypes of the novel mooring, anchoring and dynamic cable components, and a scaled model of the hybrid offshore wind floating platform will be tested and validated within the scope of the project. Three relevant environments have been selected to perform the tests: MARIN basin for global performance under controlled conditions; the Dynamic Marine Component Test facility (DMaC-UNEXE) for large scale prototypes tests; and PLOCAN Marine Test Site, for the characterisation of novel materials under real seawater conditions.
An expected 60% reduction in CAPEX and 55% in the OPEX by 2030 will be motivated by FLOTANT novel developments including additional sectorial reductions due to external technology improvements. Overall FLOTANT solution, will allow an optimisation of LCOE reaching values in the range of 85-95 €/MWh by 2030.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
35200 Telde
Spain
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Participants (16)
EX4 4QJ Exeter
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EH8 9YL Edinburgh
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46980 PATERNA VALENCIA
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
52062 Aachen
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6708 PM Wageningen
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A94 W209 BLACKROCK DUBLIN
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
28036 Madrid
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
44321 Nantes
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
1000 Ljubljana
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
CV8 1AB KENILWORTH, WARWICHSHIRE
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
AB23 8GW ABERDEEN
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
115 27 Athina
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21000 SPLIT
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46290 ALCASSER
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28016 Madrid
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92400 COURBEVOIE
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