Demonstration of innovative technologies for floating wind farms

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

The first commercial-scale floating wind farm has recently come into operation and other floating wind farms initiatives are ongoing. Floating wind farms have significant potential but further efforts are needed to drive the costs down and to fully commercialise and industrialise the technology.

Proposals will focus on the demonstration of floating offshore wind innovations (such as blades, floaters, moorings, electrical subsystems and cabling, monitoring systems, and/or integrated systems, including whole wind turbines specifically conceived for floating offshore), in view of scaling-up power rating to >10 MW. Different sea and weather conditions shall be considered. Proposals shall improve industrial design and manufacturing processes, installation methods and operation & maintenance.

Proposals are expected to bring the technology(ies) to TRL 6-8 (please see part G of the General Annexes).

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to 25 million would allow this challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Decrease the Levelized cost of Energy (LCOE) and environmental impacts while increasing market value of floating wind power^[1]. ,

Blue Growth
Clean Energy

[1]This recent concept becomes increasingly important as wind power is often exposed to merchant prices which can be very low. Formally, it represents the average revenue per energy unit of wind produced. See, for example, Riva (2016, p. 15). System value of wind power - an analysis of the effects of wind turbine design. Available at http://www.ea-energianalyse.dk/reports/student-reports/system_value_of_wind_power.pdf.