Co-locating or integrating floating wind and wave power could open the way for gigawatt-scale arrays that drive down the costs of both fast-emerging renewable sources, said the boss of a company poised to carry out pioneering tests on the concept in the UK.

Wave power technology group Bombora will work with Britain’s Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult to see if floating wind and wave systems can work together to share infrastructure such as moorings – which can account for up to 30% of a floating wind project’s Capex – grid connections or even entire platforms, reducing overall levelised cost of energy (LCoE).

The research will be based at Pembroke, South Wales, where Bombora is advancing a first 1.5MW deployment of its mWave technology (see panel at foot) backed by a £10m ($12.3m) government grant – the same area as a near-100MW floating wind project backed by oil giant Total is planned.

Bombora and ORE Catapult will look at options for running floating wind and wave generation side-by-side, and also the potential for integrating the key components of the two on a single platform, both with a view to possible overall cost savings.

“We’re looking at what’s happening with the various floating wind platform, most of which are compatible with our system, with some optimisation,” Sam Leighton, managing director of Bombora told Recharge.

Leighton said Bombora – which was founded in Australia but is looking to advance first project in Wales and the Canary Islands – is also following “with interest” key floating wind plans – including the Total-backed Simply Blue Energy project off Pembrokeshire.

Leighton said the eventual ambition for mWave is to have the ability to support gigawatt-scale deployments “which is the way the whole industry is heading”.

The Celtic Sea Basin off South Wales is reckoned to contain a potential 50GW of floating capacity. Developer DP Energy – which is also working on integrating floating wind and wave technology – is already planning a 720MW project in the region.

Floating wind has emerged as one of the most promising renewable technologies with the potential to reach huge scale, but also faces a pressing need to reduce cost of energy to compete with other generation sources.

Industry analysts range widely in their 2030 global forecasts for floating wind, with estimates spread from as little as 6GW up to almost 19GW – with arrays in development in all major maritime regions and over 30GW of commercial-scale projects in early planning – but all agree the build-out will be centrally influenced by how quickly LCoE numbers can be brought down towards sub-$45/MWh, to be competitive with conventional offshore wind.

Wind

Floating wind and wave power could link to slash costs for gigawatt-scale arrays