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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WTSS (Wind Turbine Support Structure)

Teaser

Summary

Offshore wind is a growing market worldwide. Wind Europe expects offshore wind to cover up to 11 percent of the total electricity demand in EU by 2030. Based on abundant resources, technology development and economies of scale; floating wind turbines are expected to be the preferred technology offshore from the mid-2020s, with LCOE forecast of 80 Euro/MWh by 2030.

Global offshore wind capacity has more than trebled in the past five years to 14,4 GW in 2016 and is forecasted to reach 40 GW in five years and over 60 GW in the next ten years. Additionally, capital and operational expenditures are forecasted to grow by 15-20% p.a. to around EUR 250 billion over the next ten years. This represents a market approaching EUR 25 billion p.a.

However, the main challenge for the entire wind industry is to reduce costs, both CAPEX and OPEX, in order to be competitive with other energy sources. This implies a need for industrialization of the supply chain of installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommission of the wind farms.

Offshore Kinetics has developed a game changing offshore floating wind turbine support structure that will optimise assembly, installation, commissioning, operation & maintenance and decommissioning of wind farms. The concept is expected to be considerably more cost efficient than the leading models on floating wind turbines in the world today.

Introducing technical and operational standards for the future, Offshore Kineticsâ€™ overall objective is to upscale, demonstrate and commercialize our solution in the offshore wind market.

Taking both technological and commercial viability into consideration, the innovation project has two specific objectives:
- Full scale testing of the entire process of assembly, installation, commissioning, operations & maintenance, with expected outcome to:
â—‹ Validate the support structure, and subsequently demonstrate that it meets the requirements set by the market.
â—‹ Prove and document cost savings based on actual costs.

- Establish a partnership with an industrial actor that in the short term has the financial and administrative capacity to execute a full scale verification test, and in the longer term could bring the WTSS to new offshore wind park projects in Europe and beyond. The expected outcome is a partnership with i.e. a developer/operator, turbine manufacturer or transport company that will optimize the patented solution to design, systems and methods.

The short-term objective, covered in the SME Instrument phase 1, was to perform a feasibility study to assess both the business and technology viability to reach the long-term objectives mentioned above.

Specific objectives of the feasibility study were:
- F1 Market and competitor analysis
- F2 Cost assessment
- F3 Business plan development
- F4 IPR analysis and novelty verification/network patent analysis
- F5 WTSS Design verification.
- F6 Plan for phase II development.

The feasibility study concludes that Offshore Kinetics should pursue the business opportunity and prepare a funding strategy, development plan and â€œgo to marketâ€ strategy to target the proposed beachhead market.

Work performed

The main activities in the feasibility were:

- Offshore Kinetics has conducted a comprehensive market and competitor analysis that covers relevant beachhead markets.
â—‹ The applicable alternatives and preferable beachhead market is identified and presented.
- A detailed development plan with cost assessment is prepared and includes all defined activities, cost estimates, schedule, cash flow, resource and competence requirements.
â—‹ Alternative schedule with optional methods that can be customised in accordance to private and public funding alternatives is presented.
â—‹ An optional WTSS development plan, based on a step by step investment and concept verification is proposed.
Validates and verifies the concept and equipment before start of detail engineering and design.
Assuring the concept viability at an earlier stage of the investments.
Reducing the calculated investment risk.
Reduced organisation.
- The substantial cost implies that Offshore Kinetics need to target investments for conducting the development plan.

- The business plan is developed with the objective of securing financial and administrative capabilities for testing and commercialise the WTSS.

â—‹ Offshore Kinetics has iterated the WTSS business plan. Venture Capital strategy and the industrial partnership strategy are proposed. Both these strategies are viable.

- OK have already performed a successful 1:25 scale model test, A second test is planned. A Qualification program is prepared to establish documented evidences that the WTSS concept with all specific equipment, facilities and systems are fit and ready for assembly, tow-out, installation and operation in an offshore windfarm.

- Based on the result from the feasibility study Offshore Kinetics, is considering to establishing a company in in the beachhead market.

- The development plan covers the entire process from pre-engineering to fabrication of a full-size wind turbine. Offshore Kinetics will target funding, for the testing and demonstration activities.

The general results mentioned above will be presented on the relevant webpages and in relevant networks. Offshore Kinetics has already presented the technology in a seminar, for an offshore wind cluster, private own companies and government agencies. Furthermore, has the Norwegian Research Council written an article about Offshore Kinetics technology and the market activities conducted in the project.

Final results

Offshore Kinetics (OK) is an innovative Norwegian SME established in 2009 that has developed a game changing offshore floating wind turbine support structure that will optimize installation, commissioning, operation (maintenance) and decommissioning of wind farms. The concept is expected to be considerably more cost efficient than the leading models on floating support structures in the world today. Furthermore, the support structure is a simple concept with few simple parts that makes it easy to produce and is easy to industrialize. The concept is also resilient to harsh weather conditions that is common offshore. When the floating support structure is commercialised, it expected to bring the cost of energy from wind farm down, making wind energy more competitive with other energy sources. For Europe and other parts of the world the green shift to competitive renewable energy is a vital societal challenge, that Offshore Kinetics could play a role to achieve.