84. Floating Offshore Wind - oct22

Offshore Wind was one of the great development successes of the past decade, growing in 10 years from a few pilot projects to a real industry. Two zones have been at the fore front: the North Sea (with 30GW as of 2021) and China (with +20GW). Better tech, burgeoning supply chain and infrastructure, and a dramatic fall in cost have created tailwinds for this industry.

Offshore Wind is now a technology considered all around the world. However, there is a little problem: the fixed bottom Offshore Industry has benefited from a unique feature of the North Sea, i.e. shallow waters (less than 70m). And if you find great wind resources offshore in a lot of places, the seabed is generally much deeper, in fact too deep for fixed bottom.

Hence, some of the North Sea pioneers have been trying to crack the code of floating offshore wind. A milestone was hit when, in March 2022, Scotland awarded 15GW of seabed for floating. No more experimentation, the race is on.

To talk about this new technology, its promises as well as its challenges, we have invited Stephen Bull, EVP Renewables at Aker Solutions, the Norwegian Engineering giant. Within its offshore wind division, Aker has developed a specific competence relating to foundations, transmission, marine operations, dynamic cable, mooring systems, and subsea power solutions.

Stephen Bull is also Chair of Renewable UK and one the founding father of the offshore wind industry in the UK when he was at Equinor leading the development of Dogger Bank, the largest offshore wind park in the world.

With plans to multiply offshore wind by a factor 10 in the coming decades, and floating being a key technology, Gerard and Laurent are having a great conversation on how to unlock the floating potential, and also discover how “concrete is the unsung hero of floating OSW”.

This episode is produced in partnership with WindEurope
https://windeurope.org/


We thank our partner Aquila Capital
https://www.aquila-capital.de/en/