Page 10: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (May/Jun 2023)

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FLOATING WIND INTERVIEW WITH ACTEON CCO BARRY PARSONS priz e is more than 8 GW of foating project

Floating Wind’s Future is Now

There has been much focus on the emerging foating potential, mostly off the east coast Usan wind market of late. According to Philip Lewis, Director r egion. Australia and Japan are also the subject of Research, Intelatus, there are tens of GW of foating of much interest.

The list of offshore foating wind is long and growing, wind projects slated for development through the 2030s, and the allure of foating wind is the ability to place the including these widely discussed projects: units further from land in deeper water, providing access • The U.K. is forging ahead with commercial scale to stronger, more reliable wind sources that house an esti- foating wind developments through the Scotwind mated 80% of offshore wind resources. Another attraction and INTOG awards of at least 24 gigawatts (GW) to deeper waters further from shore is the availability of of foating wind capacity representing close to offshore real estate with fewer competitors and conficts. 1,500 foating turbines that will come on stream “Clearly, offshore power generation is not the only use of thr ough 2030. offshore real estate,” said Parsons. “We’re competing with • 4 GW of capacity through the Celtic Sea foating the fshing industry and transportation, as well as protect- wind auctions. ed environmental areas. All that complexity increases as • The U.S. has awarded foating wind leases with a you approach the coast on the continental shelf.” potential of more than 8 GW of capacity in the

While projections generously indicate an uptick in the P acifc and will move ahead with large foating offshore foating wind in 2026/27 and beyond, Parsons is wind leases in the Atlantic this year. keen to point out that the technology development con- • Norway is planning to award 1.5 GW of foating versations are already being conducted at pace. “We have wind capacity at Utsira Nord this year and France commercial agreements in place for foating wind proj- is targeting bring 750 megawatts (MW) of oating turbines on stream at the end of the decade ects in Korea, the UK, the United States, France, Norway f and Italy. This is big, it’s global, and it’s happening right in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. now. And I think maybe some people if I can be blunt, are • Spain and Portugal announced multi-gigawatt asleep at the switch. [To be clear], this is today’s problem. foating wind aspirations.

The installation’s going to happen tomorrow but fguring • In Asia Pacifc, despite permitting hurdles, the 10 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM