Principle Power Launches New Floating Wind Foundation - Offshore WIND
Principle Power Launches New Floating Wind Foundation | Offshore Wind
Principle Power Launches New Floating Wind Foundation
Principle Power has launched a new flat panel, pontoon-based floating wind foundation, called WindFloat F, designed for ultra-shallow wind turbine integration in ports.
Having its existing WindFloat tubular design, now called WindFloat T, already proving its mettle offshore and building upon it to bring WindFloat F, Principle Power has now expanded its WindFloat product portfolio to two fully industrialised products, according to the company.
The new floating wind foundation design combines flat panel architecture used in shipbuilding and oil and gas with technology from the WindFloat T and includes the same three-column architecture and an improved hull trim system.
“The launch of the WindFloat F comes as Principle Power spurs the floating wind industry toward global expansion, where GW-scale projects in diverse geographies place new demands on the supply chain, including more restrictive port infrastructure, the need for serial production, and a need for greater flexibility to incorporate local supply chains into project execution plans”, Principle Power says.
According to the company, WindFloat F – designed for wind turbine integration in ports as shallow as nine metres and having additional buoyancy of the pontoons that minimises column diameter and footprint – allows for automated subcomponent manufacturing at existing Tier 1 and Tier 2 fabrication facilities and for creating more options within supply chains.
“We’ve taken proven flat panel architecture, the 550 GWh WindFloat operational track record, and our state-of-the-art numerical models, and extended all of it to the WindFloat F,” said Principle Power Vice President of Technology, Seth Price. “This means we can offer project developers patented products that are bankable from the beginning.”
Principle Power says the expansion of its floating wind foundation product portfolio will play a key role in the company’s industrialisation vision, called “300×30”, within which the floating wind technology developer plans to deliver 300 floating wind turbines by 2030.
The company has 75 MW of capacity in operation at WindFloat Atlantic (Portugal) and Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm (Scotland), and 30 MW currently under construction at the Eoliennes Flottantes du Golfe du Lion project in France, with contracts for commercial-scale projects totalling 10 GW.
ADVERTISE ON OFFSHOREWIND.BIZ
Get in front of your target audience in one move! OffshoreWIND.biz is read by thousands of offshore wind professionals daily.
Follow offshoreWIND.biz on:
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.