Developer Simply Blue Energy is partnering with offshore oil contractor Subsea7 to build a 200MW floating wind array in the North Sea off Scotland, in the latest move by the Irish group in the deepwater renewable energy space.

The project – dubbed Salamander, after a 16^th century Royal Scots Navy warship – has been launched ahead of the highly anticipated ScotWind offshore wind auction, which after several delays and an emergency review by the Scottish authorities is now moving ahead to begin taking bids on acreage later this year.

“Scotland is one of the best locations on the planet for the development of floating wind projects. As a developer, we want to contribute to the development of this market,” said Simply Blue CEO Sam Roch-Perks.

“Despite best intentions, previous projects have not achieved the hoped-for regional supply chain benefits, but we believe that for the supply chain to capitalise on the opportunities from ScotWind, a stepping-stone project like Salamander is needed.”

Roch-Perks told Recharge the “initial development programme [at Salamander] was well underway with bird and mammal surveys already commenced” at the project site, located 30km offshore in some 95 metres of water.

Subsea 7 CEO John Evans added: “We believe floating wind has an important role to play in the energy transition and low-carbon future.

“Subsea 7’s long track record of delivering offshore energy projects positions us well to support Simply Blue at this early stage of the Salamander project.”

Simply Blue is currently developing the giant 1GW Emerald floating wind project with Shell and the 300MW Valorous and 100MW Erebus pre-commercial arrays with Total in the Celtic Sea, as well as 1.1GW Western Star floating wind-wave development in the Irish Atlantic.

“These projects are focused on helping local supply chain develop their operations using a phased approach. Specifically, in Scotland, commercial projects are anticipated to be developed under the ScotWind leasing process,” said Roch-Perks, who highlighted that with Salamander, Simply Blue’s current pipeline of projects in the UK “has the opportunity to deliver up to 60% of [British government’s] 1GW by 2030 floating wind target set in 2020”.

Salamander’s floating foundation concept, which will feature “several [as-yet-unspecified] innovations”, is being guided by “local deliverability”, he added, with the developer working with Scottish energy sector cluster DeepWind to enable “approximately 50% more Scottish ports to be considered for marshalling and assembly than would otherwise be the case”.

“The Salamander project has followed a different approach to selecting a foundation technology. We have studied the capabilities of the supply chain in Scotland and, after a thorough analysis, we are focusing on a technology that we believe can, to a significant extent, be delivered locally” said Roch-Perks.

DeepWind head Paul O’Brien said: “This completes a Celtic triple with Simply Blue now developing floating wind projects in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Even better is their plan to develop the local supply chain in Scotland to help deliver Salamander as a precursor to the commercial-scale floating wind projects coming in the ScotWind leasing round. Great news all round.”

Scotland opened the gates on ScotWind, the first round of offshore wind leasing in Scottish waters, much of it in depths ideal for floaters, for a decade, in January. The launch of this auction is widely seen as a “vital” accelerant in the development of the sector in the North Sea with expectations the tender could uncork a £9bn ($11.5bn) wave of investment in the regional industry as some 10GW of new plant is built.

Floating wind markets are on the verge of explosive growth globally, with recent analysis from UK-based low carbon advisory body the Carbon Trust calculating last year that over 70GW of floating wind could be turning by 2040 – a near-1,000-fold expansion of the current global fleet – as international supply chains take shape to support development of commercial-scale projects around the world.

DNV, meanwhile, in its latest Energy Transition Outlook, forecast some 260GW of floating wind turning worldwide by 2050, but this expansion hinges on the sector reducing LCOE to €40-60/MWh ($50-75/MWh) from levels today that are three times as high.

Wind

'Celtic triple' as Simply Blue Energy sets floating wind sails for Scottish deep waters