Page 59: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2023)

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FIRST PERSON FLOATING WIND ENGINEERING

Challenges and opportunities in choosing the right material and design for foating wind foundations, drawing on the author’s experience from the Eolmed project and exploring the innovation gaps in the foating wind sector. Tistle

Wind Partners (TWP) is developing two projects afer securing rights to almost 400k m2 of seabed under the

ScotWind leasing round in 2022. Currently in development is the Ayre Ofshore Wind Farm, a 1GW foating- foundation project located 33km to the east of Orkney, and the Bowdun Ofshore Wind Farm, a 1GW fxed-foundation project lying 44km of the coast of Aberdeenshire.

histle Wind Partners (TWP) was founded in

Eolmed: Learnings from France 2020 by DEME Concessions, Qair, and Aspiravi I came to the TWP project fresh from working on the as a wind development business with a focus on design team for the Eolmed Floating Wind Farm, a Qair

Scotland. While our founders have a combined project in the South of France that is now entering its con-

T 60 years of experience in renewables with projects across the struction phase. world, TWP is the new kid on the block in Scotland. My role was to conduct the combined elasto-aero-hy-

We attract a lot of curiosity at industry events, especially drodynamic analysis of foating foundation designs using when it comes to our plans for foating offshore wind de- numerical modeling. velopment – one of our project sites, which lies 33km to We took a technology agnostic approach, initially con- the east of Orkney, will be a 1GW foating wind farm (es- sidering concrete as an alternative to steel. The local mar- timated start of construction – 2029). ket conditions meant that on this occasion, the choice

How are we approaching design selection? What are our landed on steel, and we are now in the construction stage. requirements for suppliers and fabricators? As a ScotWind At TWP, we are starting the process of choosing foat- developer, we have also set ambitious targets for the use of ing foundation materials and designs once again. Concrete the local supply chain in line with the expectations set by and steel foaters are on the table for us, and we will be the Scottish Government and Crown Estate Scotland. We pursuing conversations with foundation designers, fabrica- need and want to develop a robust local supply chain, and tors, and supply chain in the coming year.

this is a major factor in how we will procure our turbines We expect that this is an area of development that will and components. move on fast as we consider the options, but there are a

MARCH/APRIL 2023 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 59