Remotely Operated, Quick Release Mooring Line Tensioners
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 remotely operated quick release mechanisms for floating offshore wind turbine mooring systems. Successful businesses will have the chance to present their solution to the Challenge Holders, Simply Blue Group and Flotation Energy, address questions and obtain feedback on the technical and commercial feasibility of the presented solutions. 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 InnovateUK 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. ORE Catapult’s unique facilities, research and engineering capabilities bring together industry and academia and drive innovation. 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 pre-laying anchors. Pre-lay anchors allow for the installation of a complete mooring spread before the FOWT arrives on location. Improvements could be made in the design of this system to optimise the hook-up and disconnection operation between the mooring system and the FOWT. Currently the hook-up operation is performed manually which has safety and operational setbacks with tighter installation weather windows. A quick connection system would solve these issues and allow for more efficient hook-ups and improved installation campaigns through wider operational windows.
In the Oil and Gas industry, Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) systems and Semi-Submersibles used for drilling utilise winches to tension and slacken the mooring lines in their systems. It is unlikely that winches will be utilised on the FOWT substructure as the turbines will be unmanned, meaning advanced remote operation is required. They will also need continued maintenance resulting in both higher CAPEX and OPEX.
The Challenge Holders will review novel ways of tensioning or slackening the mooring line without the need for a turbine mounted winch. This could be delivered by a mechanism on the turbine, at the anchor side of the mooring line (instead of mid-line tensioners), or integration of existing technology used to success in parallel industries such as oil and gas.
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