The project will optimise the entire architecture for a floating wind farm, with the aim of developing a more cost-effective floating wind farm design in the Utsira Nord area.
– This is excellent news for our company and shows the willingness of both Deep Wind Offshore and Enova to develop a new profitable offshore wind industry in Norway. Our goal is to reduce costs; increasing the turbine and wind farm size is crucial, but several other work packages need to be scaled up. This is what we want to address in the project, and it will be something that both we as a company and the entire industry will benefit from, says Knut Vassbotn, CEO of Deep Wind Offshore.
Unitech, a partner in the project, will document a new design of a dynamic power cable for the project, and Deep Wind Offshore will ensure the quality of the floater design, the interface to the turbine, tower, and transformer. The project will facilitate a cost-effective transformer station at Utsira, which will also provide local jobs.
–The support from ENOVA and collaboration with DWO are significant contributions and measures for the commercialisation of safe and cost-effective high-voltage systems for floating offshore wind farms, says CEO of Unitech Energy, Gunnar Birkeland.
In recent years, Unitech has invested heavily in the development of new designs for dynamic cables that will withstand greater loads and be less expensive to install. The Enova project enables Unitech to build on the knowledge and technology in the EU-supported Flagship project where patented 66 kV dynamic cables will be demonstrated. Qualification of technology for higher voltages such as 132 kV will benefit the entire industry and help accelerate the development of floating offshore wind farms.
The use of 132 kV inter-array voltage, a 200 % increase on the current state of the art, is central to the project. This will enable the use of a remote onshore substation rather than a floating substation, and reduce costs significantly.
Enova is a Norwegian government enterprise responsible for the promotion of environmentally friendly production and consumption of energy. Deep Wind offshore got the funding through Enova's program for preliminary projects in new energy and climate technology.
–With its project "Next generation offshore wind farm", Deep Wind Offshore intends to develop and commercialise technology that will reduce the costs of floating offshore wind energy production. There are many interesting technology elements in the project, and these will provide insight and knowledge to inform any future investment decision. We are following the project with great interest, says Marketing Manager, Oskar Gärdeman, in Enova.
–The support from public agencies such as Enova is a prerequisite for implementing floating offshore wind projects in the short term, so this is an essential milestone in the development of offshore wind energy production on the Norwegian continental shelf. Enova has played a leading role in this development, and we hope that they will continue to do so, until the industry, hopefully in the near future, can deliver commercial projects independently, concludes Knut Vassbotn.
Want to know more about the project? Read the interview with our CEO, Knut Vassbotn, in the Technical Weekly – Teknisk Ukeblad.
