Hiraeth collaboration: Supporting floating offshore wind

As the demand for renewable energy continues to grow globally, there is a consistent focus on which methods of energy generation hold the greatest potential. Floating offshore wind has drawn significant attention in recent years, with growing realisation for this technology to revolutionize the renewable energy landscape. This has led to an increased focus on how we can deploy such windfarms to harness the currently untapped potential of strong winds in deep waters.

Credit: COWI

Floating offshore wind farms are a relatively new concept, with the 30 MW Hywind Scotland installation becoming the first floating offshore wind farm to become operational in 2017. Unlike traditional fixed-bottom wind farms which are confined to shallower coastal waters, floating offshore wind farms can be established much further offshore, where wind speeds are higher and more consistent.

Floating wind turbines rely on floating platforms that are moored to the seabed for stability, which also permits the deployment of larger wind turbines to maximise the amount of wind energy which can be harnessed. Much like traditional offshore installations, crucial infrastructure such as cables and moorings to the seafloor must be protected from scouring. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, such as through the use of rock armour layers or articulated concrete mattresses.

Credit: Blackfish Engineering

The deployment of our ExoReef units off the Pembrokeshire coast represents an exciting step towards harnessing the vast wind resources of the Celtic Sea, additionally supporting innovation to bolster the offshore wind energy sector in Wales. The deeper waters of the Celtic Sea have previously posed a challenge for the development of offshore wind infrastructure, but this will soon be overcome as we begin to see the development of floating offshore windfarms in the Celtic Sea. During the deployment, we teamed up with Pembrokeshire-based Hiraeth Energy, a renewable energy supplier who are working to harness the offshore wind resources of the Celtic Sea using floating windfarms.

Supporting the delivery of low-carbon energy, Hiraeth Energy also recognise the importance of enhancing habitats and biodiversity to strengthen ecosystem resilience to the effects of a changing climate.

We hope that this collaborative approach will inform a range of key players of the potentials for ecological engineering within floating offshore wind infrastructure, and the subsequent opportunities for biodiversity to flourish.

Project collaboration team