What's Floatin'

Headlines from FOWT Marseille

Posted on by atonkin

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