National Renewable Energy Lab selected for offshore wind technology award
The National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium selected the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for its first offshore wind research and development technology award.
The project seeks to improve the feasibility of floating wind farm technology.
“The Consortium is delighted to make its first award to NREL, a federal research institution which is in the forefront of advancing renewable technologies. This $300,000 award will focus on shared mooring systems for floating wind farms to require fewer anchors resulting in lower costs, consistent with reducing the long-term cost of offshore wind as it becomes a greater part of our energy mix. The Consortium looks forward to this being the first of a series of awards consistent with its mission to lower long-term energy costs,” Robert Catell, chairman of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC), said.
NREL, a federal research institution, has been awarded $300,000 for its “Shared Mooring Systems for Deep Floating Wind Farms” project. NREL will look at the potential of shared mooring lines to reduce floating wind farm costs by connecting adjacent turbine platforms and distributing load throughout the wind farm so that anchors are only required on the outer turbines. This will result in fewer anchors, fewer mooring lines, and lower costs.
As part of the project, NREL will update their modeling tools to support floating wind farms with shared mooring systems.
“I’m pleased to announce the Consortium’s first award to NREL for important foundational research. This project is a critical step toward creating a cost efficient and sustainable supply chain to support the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry,” Carrie Cullen Hitt, executive director, National Offshore Wind Research and Development Authority, said.
Many of the potential offshore wind project sites in the U.S. are located in deep waters, so traditional fixed-bottom turbines anchored directly to the sea floor are not feasible in waters. Floating turbines anchored to the sea floor are attractive for deeper waters, but the cost to keep turbines anchored significantly increases in deeper waters. More than 58 percent of the total technical offshore wind resource is located in water depths greater than 60 meters where floating offshore wind technology will be used, according to the DOE.
“This selection is important to further the commercialization of offshore floating wind in the U.S.,” Senu Sirnivas, principal engineer for NREL’s offshore wind energy technology programs, said. “Station-keeping system components and installation costs directly affect levelized cost of energy. In order for offshore floating wind to become more competitive with other energy sources, this project explores the economic feasibility of shared mooring systems for station-keeping and to provide the industry with design tools to explore cost reductions.”
This project will help to mitigate depth-related cost increases and improve the economic feasibility of floating wind farms in deep water.
