Solutions for the Anchor Monitoring, Focussing on Anchor Slippage
Innovate UK Business Connect and ORE Catapult, is supporting ORE Catapult’s Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FOW CoE) - The Challenge Holder - to identify innovative solutions for monitoring anchor movement and slippage on floating offshore wind turbines. Successful businesses will have the chance to present their solution to the Challenge Holders, Simply Blue Group and Flotation Energy, to address questions and obtain feedback on the technical and commercial feasibility of the presented solutions. The Challenge Holders may also explore commercial opportunities to develop, deliver, and demonstrate winning solutions, depending on their direct needs and use cases. Innovate UK Business Connect can also help winners to find investors or grant funding and explore additional support from ORE Catapult and the wider Innovate UK network.
Opportunity
Challenge opens
24/05/2024
Challenge closes
28/06/2024
Benefit
Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to pitch their solutions to the Challenge Holder.
Background
The iX initiative is supporting the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FWCoE) and its 17 member companies in the offshore wind industry to identify solutions to its innovation needs.
Floating offshore wind
Through the ScotWind leasing round, the UK recently committed to as much as 27.6GW (approximately 1500-3000 turbines) of new offshore wind generating capacity over the next decade, of which 19GW will be built on floating foundations. The recent Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round has extended this capacity by 5.4GW, bringing the total Scottish floating wind pipeline capacity to 24.4GW. Celtic Sea leasing will provide an additional 4GW of floating wind capacity in England and Wales. Globally, the floating offshore wind market is expected to grow to 264GW of installed capacity by 2050 (DNV, 2023[1]).
ORE Catapult Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence
The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult is the UK’s leading innovation centre for offshore wind. ORE Catapult’s unique facilities, research and engineering capabilities bring together industry and academia and drive innovation.
ORE Catapult has established the Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FOW CoE) to develop an internationally recognised initiative to reduce the cost of energy from floating wind and hosts memberships to 19 offshore wind developers. The Centre will accelerate the build-out of floating farms, create opportunities for the UK supply chain, and drive innovations in manufacturing, installation and O&M.
Floating offshore wind turbine mooring systems and this challenge.
Mooring systems for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) are typically designed with lines that tether the floating structure to the seabed. One design approach with mooring systems for FOWTs is the application of a 3-leg mooring system. FOWT structures are unmanned so during severe environmental loading conditions, and in the event of a failure, unacceptable consequences such as loss of life or environmental effects are avoided.
If a mooring line fails, the remaining two lines would provide sufficient holding capacity to avoid collision with another structure. Therefore, the added material and installation costs of a 3-line system are absorbed to reduce the risk of catastrophic failure. Upon mooring line failure, the FOWT can experience a significant offset in the opposite direction to the broken line, which may compromise the position of the remaining two anchors. Therefore, it is important that the position of these anchors are tracked.
The example provided is just an example. Future systems could also include:
- Greater than three lines
- Different anchor types
- Varying operational and accidental cases.
This challenge is brought to you by:
