UK-based non-profit organisation the Carbon Trust has initiated two new studies to investigate critical issues for large-scale floating wind farms.
The study will be carried out under Floating Wind Joint Industry Partnership (JIP) and led by Carbon Trust.
Commissioned by the Scottish Government and 12 industry partners, JIP will focus on the development of high-voltage dynamic cables, as well as outline monitoring and inspection requirements for commercial floating wind power projects.
The industry partners in JIP include EnBW, Engie, Eolfi, E.ON, Iberdrola, innogy, Kyuden Mirai, Ørsted, Shell, Statoil, Vattenfall, and Wpd Offshore.
BPP Cables will be leading the study on dynamic export cables, which has been categorised as a potential bottleneck for commercial deployments.
The Carbon Trust manager Rhodri James said: “The lack of available dynamic export cables is currently a key technical and commercial risk for floating wind projects and we are hopeful of playing an important role in stimulating the market to develop solutions for the industry.
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By GlobalData“Monitoring and inspection also becomes increasingly important in large-scale deployments and we again hope to play a role in both ensuring that current standards and guidelines are fit-for-purpose, whilst identifying novel technologies that can reduce operations and maintenance costs.”
The UK-based firm further explained that the unavailability of suitable high-voltage dynamic cables (from 130kV to 250kV) for efficient power transmission back to shore is impacting the commercial floating wind power projects.
As part of the study, the Carbon Trust is also planning to launch a competition to support cable manufacturers to develop suitable designs.
Through this competition, the Carbon Trust intends to fast-track the development of new technologies in order to ensure that the high voltage dynamic cables are available for the commercial floating wind projects over the next five to ten years.
During commercial deployments, operators make use of large number of components such as hulls, mooring lines, anchors, and cabling.
It is reported that operators generally find it difficult to cost-effectively monitor and inspect their assets.
To be delivered by Oceaneering, the second study focuses on monitoring and inspection requirements for floating wind farms.
Oceaneering will use its experience in the oil and gas industry to develop a risk-based approach to monitor and inspect systems, as well as identify cost-reduction technologies.