At the FOWT (Floating Offshore Wind Turbines) conference in Marseille last week, the in-crowd of the FWE industry gathered.
The conference boasted a strong increase in attendance with more than 800 delegates, including a 50+ delegation from Japan, confirming the increasing momentum of floating wind and the high quality presentations at the show.
Key headlines and newsworthy items from the convention floor:
- Ideol announced their long-expected first commercial floating wind project in Japan with partner Acacia Renewables, subsidiary of Macquarie Construction. Start slated for 2023.
- Sakiyama commercial project going forward in Japan. Toda bringing 10 of its spars online offshore Goto Island with 2MW turbines. Construction starts Q4 2018, online Q4 2019
- The Nedo Kitakyushu floater (Ideol Damping Pool steel version) is said to come online this summer
- Statoil is looking at using wind energy in their Oil & Gas activities in Norway with a view on reducing carbon footprint
- In answer to a conference question, Statoil stated ‘We are ready for commercialization, as soon as early 2019’ We just need to be asked.
- A suggestion was made that lifting fixed bottom regulations for floating wind might change bankability & technology optimisation for the better
- A combined Siem & Vryhof paper showed an insight in the effect of designing mooring systems from an installation point of view
- Henrik Stiesdal did exactly that for a floater, by showing that modular fabrication allows involving local companies in an industrial scale project
- After all this good news, there is unfortunately the consensus that the US Maine Aqua Ventus project is likely to be terminated
- Swedish Hexicon is in joint venture with Korean Coens to form CoensHexicon Co. Ltd to offer Korean manufactured structures for the Asian market
All items – and others- will be added to the Q FWE database next week and also updated on an electronic version of the FWE world map, available in the webstore:
http://questoffshore.com/product-category/quest-floating-wind-energy/
Erik Rijkers