A new engineering design study, carried out for the UK's Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), suggests the company's PelaStar TLP – a five-armed-hull concept moored by synthetic fibre tendons in water depths of between 55-1,200 metres – could deliver "further reductions as the technology matures".

"We completed a substantial amount of engineering, design and model testing, as well as project execution planning and installation engineering, and are pleased to find the results have validated our earlier work," says Glosten project manager William Hurley.

The PelaStar, optimised to operate in wind speeds of 10 metres per second, is cued up to be fitted with a 6MW Alstom Haliade 150 turbine for trials at the deep-water Wave Hub demonstrator facility off Cornwall, in southwest England.

"[The...