Does 'fragmented' floating wind risk relegation to the energy transition periphery?
Sector must contend with obstacles not faced by fixed-bottom, says analyst, but developer flags pluses too
Floating wind risks playing a peripheral role in the European energy transition due to the fragmented nature of the demand on offer to potential developers so far, warned the CEO of offshore wind specialist Aegir Insights.
Scott Urquhart, who at an earlier stage in his career played a part in Orsted’s transformation into the world’s offshore wind pioneer, says floating wind has the opportunity to build on fixed-bottom's success, but still lacks some of the fundamentals to do so.
“A really important aspect of the story that explains how fixed-bottom wind worked out so well is that we had massive capacity commitments across a single basin from countries like Denmark, the UK and Germany. This allowed the industry to execute back-to-back on this pipeline," he told Recharge.
