Page 18: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jul/Aug 2023)

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RENEWABLE ENERGY FLOATING WIND

Jan Arne Wold / Equinor

Anchor handlers connect to frst

Hywind Tampen turbine to be towed to feld in the Norwegian North Sea.

stretched by high demand from oil and gas projects. ing fexible solutions to developers and project engineers

As a result of market conditions, our forecast identifes a who have a variety of foating wind technologies, anchors shortage of large anchor handler and subsea construction and mooring line concepts to consider.

vessels toward the end of the decade. As demand in foat- Several market players are known to be developing foat- ing wind continues to grow, available supply is expected ing wind specifc vessel concepts that are evolutions of the to be reduced further as activity continues to pick up in more traditional designs. Based on our analysis of foating deepwater oil and gas—a sector that drives demand for wind project requirements, we expect the next generation large anchor handlers and subsea construction vessels. anchor handlers to feature:

So, what do shipbuilders and their supporting partners need to plan for? • High bollard pull, anchor handlining frame and

With around 100 foating wind design concepts at var- a large AHC crane ied levels of technical maturity, multiple anchor types to • Large back deck accommodate and three principle mooring line materials • Multiple large winch drums (chain, wire, and synthetic rope), there is no one single im- • Large chain lockers mediate dominant project solution, which drives the need • Work class ROVs for fexible installation vessels. • Flexibility to support different tensioning options

Our analysis indicates that the most effcient installa- • Low or zero emissions operations, battery tion vessels for foating wind projects will not necessarily energy storage systems, etc.

be classic large anchor handler or subsea construction ves- • Embedded digitalization sels, but rather hybrid anchor handlers capable of provid- 18 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM