OPINION | Floating wind may be behind fixed-bottom offshore’s cost curve now, but that will change, writes Trond Landbo.
After 25 years of offshore wind the cost is about to become competitive with other mainstream energy sources, and commercially viable without subsidies. Over the last five years the cost of bottom-fixed wind farms has been cut to less than half through the development of new technology and streamlined industrialisation. Large-scale floating wind has only been around for less than 10 years and still there are very
few wind turbines floating around. It cannot take advantage of going gradually from zero water depth and hence the hurdle in many ways is greater than for bottom-fixed. Offshore floating wind is at a very early stage of development and all projects are pilots or non-commercial demonstration projects.
So naturally enough the cost of floating wind is today higher than bottom fixed. But will that be the case also in the future? Many parameters can help floating wind to outperform bottom
fixed in the future.