Irish engineering consultancy GDG has secured an International Energy Agency (IEA) task aimed at advancing floating offshore wind.
The four-year programme is named “Integrated DEsign of floating wind Arrays” (Idea), with GDG one of three operating agents together with the US National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and IFP Energies Nouvelles to deliver the project.
The aim is to accelerate the sustainable commercialisation of floating wind arrays through a multidisciplinary approach seeking to maximise the technical, social, economic and environmental benefit of large-scale deployments.
It covers four research areas.
Curating a set of site conditions representative of the global floating wind deployment pipeline.
Developing reference array designs for typical site conditions and technology types.
Cataloguing array-level failure risks and mitigation strategies.
Identifying critical innovation opportunities and marine spatial planning requirements that will affect floating wind array design and deployment.
GDG managing director Paul Doherty said: “This is an exciting initiative which will allow GDG to help advance the industry and address critical gaps that will help drive down the costs of floating wind technology.”