Floating Offshore Wind Subgroup
DeepWind is now committed to forming specialist subgroups to offer member companies greater focus than can be achieved through general membership of the cluster. The aim is to provide added value to our members by concentrating on those areas of offshore wind which better match the skills and expertise possessed by subsets of our membership.
FOW Subgroup
Image: Ideol's patented floating 'Damping Pool' substructure system. Credit Ideol & V. Joncheray
Many of DeepWind's members have come from the oil and gas sector and have extensive experience of building, deploying and servicing floating structures in one of the harshest offshore environments in the world, the North Sea. Married to this is the knowledge gained from 15 years of offshore wind development in the UK, and globally, including our members who have pioneered the development of floating wind. This expertise is now being captured and concentrated in our Floating Offshore Wind Subgroup.
The aim of creating this subgroup is to bring together the supply chain elements that make up the major components of floating wind. Our members cover all aspects of floating wind including substructures, mooring systems, anchoring, installation, electrical systems (connectors and dynamic cables), subsea surveys and inspections. Complementary to this unique blend of skills and expertise is our infrastructure members, representing over 25 ports and harbours in Scotland, who are looking to develop the necessary manufacturing, assembly and maintenance facilities required for this emerging sector.
The Deepwind FOW Subgroup contains many of the leading floating wind developers as well as European, US and Japanese substructure design and supply companies who together are responsible for many of the current and future floating wind projects either operational or planned. Many of the companies have been attracted to DeepWind by the potential for Scotland to become a global hub of floating offshore wind development.
Our FOW Subgroup brings together all the actors necessary to develop a complete floating wind supply chain and includes a blend of developers, industry, training and research players capable of forging a strong sub-cluster within DeepWind.
Scotland currently leads the global development of floating offshore wind with Equinor's Hywind Scotland being the largest project in the world and with our second project, the 50MW Kincardine Offshore Wind project, set to overtake Hywind Scotland and become the largest. Not resting on its laurels, Scotland is now set to develop commercial scale floating wind projects in the ScotWind leasing round which should see these new projects being announced in Q1 next year.
It is therefore fitting that our first subgroup in DeepWind should be dedicated to floating offshore wind.
A list of the FOW Subgroup companies is laid out below with our two subgroup co-chairs Ocean Winds and Fugro identified. With 204 members it is the largest floating wind supply chain cluster in the world.
Floating Offshore Wind Subgroup
Innovation
DeepWind's FOW Subgroup intends to assist the development of new systems, products and services by working closely with the UK's innovation champions such as the Carbon Trust's Floating Wind Joint Industry Project and the ORE Catapult's Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (link to launch press release). Many of DeepWind's developer members are already involved in both groups (8 members in each group) and this offers a good opportunity to coordinate the UK's floating wind innovation landscape through this developer grouping.
At an international level, the Friends of Floating Offshore Wind (FFOW) organisation have the commercialisation of floating wind technologies as one of their core objectives. Further innovation and deployment is the key to reaching this goal and it dovetails neatly with DeepWind's own aims and goals. Eleven of the fifteen strong group of intentional companies are members of the DeepWind cluster so again the opportunity for co-operation and co-ordination is strong.
Substructures
DeepWind members represent some of the global leaders in substructure design and supply. Between them they are involved in most of the current and future floating wind projects in the international floating wind market. Below is a list of members showing the type of substructure they have either deployed at sea, tank tested or designed.
Equinor
Image: Hywind Scotland substructures. Credit: Equinor
Naval Energies
Image: FOW substructure. Credit Naval Energies
Ideol
Image: FloatGen, 1st French floating project. Credit Ideol
SBM Offshore
Image: Substructure design. Credit: SBM Offshore
NOV (GustoMSC)
Image: Substructure design. Credit: GustoMSC
Bluewater Energy Services
Image: Bluewater TLP system. Credit: Bluewater Energy Services
Floating Power Plant
Image: Hybrid wind/wave design. Credit Floating Power Plant
Toda Corporation
Image: Goto Island project, Hybrid steel/concrete spar design. Credit Toda Corporation
Ecosse IP
Image: Tension Leg Platform (TLP) design. Credit Ecosse IP
Seawind Ocean Technologies
Image: Two bladed floating wind system. Credit Seawind Ocean Technologies
GICON 
Image: Tension Leg Platform (TLP) system. Credit GICON
Nautilus Floating Solutions
Image: Semi-sub substructure system. Credit: Nautilus Floating Solutions
Axis Energy Project Group
Image: Tension Leg Platform (TLP) system. Credit Axis Energy Projects
Dolfines SAS
Image: Trussfloat semi-sub system. Credit Dolfines SAS
Floating Substations
A number of our members are looking to use their design for floating platforms from the oil and gas sector for floating offshore wind substations. The offshore wind sector could benefit from the latest designs for NUI (Normally Unmanned Installations) aimed at reducing the cost of developing marginal fields as they could also be applied to floating offshore wind. A number of the companies are also looking at the potential of using these systems for the offshore production of hydrogen as well as storage within the platforms.
Buoyant Production Technologies
Image: Production buoy system. Credit Buoyant Production Technologies
SBT Energy Ltd
Image: SB3 semi-sub system. Credit SBT Energy