BW Ideol has unveiled a standardised floating foundation product for the floating offshore wind industry.
The product is based on the BW Ideol’s Damping Pool solution in operation since 2018 in France and Japan.
The universal floating foundation is “optimised for all meteocean conditions” prevailing on the main floating wind markets, with three product classes adapted to different environmental conditions.
It is also compatible with all 15MW+ wind turbines currently available.
The new product is compact, with dimensions limited to 54 metres, and its shallow draft is below 12 metres in operation.
It can be easily scalable to the next 20MW+ wind turbines when available.
“This standard product, pre-certified in advance, unlocks mass-production by allowing multiple projects to be supplied from the same manufacturing line”, said BW Ideol.
BW Ideol has also unveiled its manufacturing line blueprint, easily scalable and replicable on multiple port infrastructures, for the mass production of concrete floating foundations.
This blueprint, optimising each manufacturing steps, has a demonstrated capacity to produce up to one floating foundation per week, with minimal harbour requirements, guaranteeing local manufacturing and delivery time.
Associated with the standard product, this manufacturing blueprint “unleashes the volume effect to drive costs down across projects and provides developers with an early guarantee on price and delivery schedule”.
BW Ideol claims to be the first floating foundation supplier to propose such an approach.
“The floating wind market is at a crossroads today: tens of gigawatts will need to be built in the coming years, requiring a change in paradigm from the floating foundation suppliers.
“We believe that adopting an approach similar to that of wind turbine manufacturers is necessary: offering a single and standard product, suitable for all geographies and turbines available on the market, produced in series based on manufacturing line serving multiple projects, so that developers can truly commit and know where they are heading,” said Paul de la Gueriviere, Founder and CEO of BW Ideol.