Page 49: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jan/Feb 2024)

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MARINE

TECHNOLOGY

TV

Watch the full interview with Alvaro Ortega,

CTO, Gazelle Wind Power

The secret sauce in the Gazelle Wind Power floating offshore wind design is in its modularly-designed, manufactured and assembled base: less material used, reduced environmental impact, lower costs and lower draft needed to float it out.

equity, but also to participate with us on the deployment.” about some specifc projects that we're planning to use our

The opportunities for Gazelle, and in fact all players in offshore wind platforms.” the foating wind sector are literally boundless as the market Armed with an innovative design that offers much evolves. “80% of the wind resources are in places where only promise, Ortega nonetheless sees many hurdles to clear.

offshore foating wind can be deployed,” said Ortega. “When “I think one of the main challenges is bringing this third we look at the map, the three main areas where we are plan- generation of turbines to place. [Phase one was] to foat, ning include Europe, which represents 60GW of potential;. being able to deploy platforms to foat and survive, but not

Asia Pacifc and its 81GW of potential; and then North to be industrialized. The second is where we are right now,

America, where we're talking about 31GW,” Ortega said. looking to solve the main issues of fabrication, assembly,

While envisioning market potential is the end game, as well as the issues with very deep waters on the West

Ortega and the Gazelle team are frmly planted in the here Coast of the United States where we have one kilometer or and now, focusing frst on the pilot test, plus the most more. [The third generation] is innovation in the supply recent news where Gazelle were preselected for a project chain, improving the assembly process to make it scalable seeking to deploy 1GW of foating wind on the Italy’s side and easy to attach. As in our case, manufacturing differ- of Adriatic Sea by the end of 2028. ent modules that attach to each other rather than having “The developer is Maverick, controlled by Green Bridge, to produce the whole platform in a manufacturing facility and it released plans for this wind farm, that will include and then transferring that massive [structure]. And, being 70 turbines of 15MW each, and has preselected Gazelle able to do this without having to make major infrastruc- as one of the providers for the offshore wind platform. ture investments, which can be in the billions of dollars,”

So, we're not only talking about a pilot; we're also talking Ortega concluded.

january/february 2024 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 49