French floating wind pioneer Ideol has inked a strategic deal with Scottish offshore oil contractor Bridon-Bekaert Ropes to develop a synthetic mooring line design that could slash in half the price of anchoring deepwater wind farms in the North Sea.

The partnership aims to marry Ideol’s ‘damping pool’ platform concept – which has been installed for prototype projects off Europe and Japan – with Aberdeen-based Bridon-Bekaert’s technical expertise in ropes and mooring to reduce capital and operation costs for future floating wind arrays, starting with those being scoped out for the UK’s upcoming ScotWind tender announced