Floating wind pioneer Saitec Engineering is moving ahead with plans to scale-up up its SATH (swing around twin hull) platform design for 10MW-plus turbines after landing €2.4m ($2.85m) in funding from the European Commission.

The Spanish outfit will use the finance for its SATHScale project to optimise the design of its concept, a two-pontoon concrete platform anchored to the seabed with a single-point mooring that allows it to "weathervane" in the wind and waves, and develop an industrialised fabrication system for mass production of the units.

“SATHScale is an important project for Saitec with a view of industrialise, internationalise and scaling-up SATH technology,” said Carlos Garrido-Mendoza, Saitec’s head of R&D.

“SATHScale will help us to move forward to the required commercial maturity level through an open-sea experience, which is essential to fully understand the challenges in device performance, survivability and reliability prior to market take-up."

The funding for SATHScale will help pave the way to proving the design is of a ‘technology readiness level’ for launch on to the market, said Garrido-Mendoza, “that is to industrial readiness and maturity for market introduction, exploiting real experiences of the ongoing open-sea 2MW demonstrator that will be deployed at BiMEP [Biscay Marine Energy Platform] off Spain”.

Saitec’s so-called DemoSATH unit, being advanced with developer RWE with an eye on demonstration in 2022 , is the next step on its roadmap to a 10MW version.

The funding was awarded to Saitec under the European Commission’s BlueInvest: Investing in Blue Innovation programme, which has a total budget of €22m to develop and bring to market new products, services, and business models for small and medium enterprises for the ‘blue economy’.

Saitec made headlines recently when its part-scale prototype capsized in a superstorm in the after succesffuly completing tests off Cantabria, off northern Spain.

Recent market analysis from UK-based international low carbon advisory body the Carbon Trust calculates 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.

The forecast sees up to 10.7GW of floating wind globally by 2030, before the market mushrooms, with a total project value approaching €220bn by the end of next decade. DNV GL, in its latest Energy Transition Outlook, forecasts some 260GW of floating wind turning by 2050, but hinges on the sector reducing levellised cost of energy to €40-60/MWh from levels today that are three times that.

Wind

Floating wind pioneer Saitec lands €2.4m to scale up novel platform for market