The floating wind power industry could surely stake a claim as one of the world’s most innovative industrial sectors, with plenty of evidence to back that up on the Recharge website this week.
First there was an exclusive insight into plans by US start-up T-Omega Wind to “democratise floating wind” with its weathervaning concept that has been engineered “from the water up”.
Recharge also brought news of how floating development pioneer Simply Blue plans to bid into Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) leasing round with a new-look floating platform designed by Marine Power Systems.
Still in Scotland, the pioneering Salamander floating wind project, being developed by Orsted with Simply Blue and offshore oil contractor Subsea7, tapped Ocergy for lead-off engineering on foundation design for the 100MW “stepping-stone” project.
Oil & gas decarbonisation and its potential to kick-start the floating sector was on the mind of senior BW Offshore executive Jon Harald Kilde in an exclusive opinion article.
The week ended with a real-world demonstration of innovation-turned-reality when Spanish floating wind start-up X1 Wind finally moored the part-scale prototype of its PivotBuoy concept off the Canary Islands.
Of course, at some stage the floating innovation will need to make the leap to the high levels of industrialisation needed to fulfil gigawatt-scale project orders of the type likely to spurred by the US’ milestone 4.5GW round off California.
The auction has sparked a stampede of interest, and a Recharge analysis article this week explored whether higher bid prices – and therefore cost of power – could be an unwelcome unintended consequence of high demand for acreage.
Rishi's winds of change
UK politics this week continued to leave the rest of the world in a state of appalled fascination as Rishi Sunak was named Prime Minister – the country’s third in a few months – after the brief, disastrous premiership of Liz Truss.
Energy policy was soon centre stage, as renewables developers and investors waited to see how closely he would follow the agenda set out by his doomed predecessor and her controversial secretary of state and "climate dinosaur", Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Rees-Mogg was soon on his way out of the government to be replaced by Grant Shapps, himself a sometime controversial figure because of his use of the business pseudonym 'Michael Green' – though whether that moniker will turn out to suit Shapps’ approach to renewables has yet to be seen.
Also up in the air is Sunak’s stance on onshore wind, with industry executives telling Recharge they fear the new Prime Minister could row back on a commitment made in the brief Truss era to lift restrictions on new projects in England.
Straight-talking on storage
If you’re looking to start the weekend with some insightful views on one of the key issues confronting the energy transition, Recharge’s interview with industry veteran Alan Greenshields will fit the bill.
Greenshields is anxious that the clamour around hydrogen is drowning out the need for smart policy around what he claims is the “missing piece” of the transition jigsaw – long-duration energy storage.
