Thursday 28 March 2019

Floating wind project gets €4m gust of funding

Floating wind project gets €4m gust of funding

A floating wind energy project has received €4 million (£3.4m) of new funding.

A consortium of nine partners, led by X1 Wind, has been granted the EU Commission Horizon 2020 finance to deploy a prototype of its PivotBuoy technology at a test site at the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN).

The group aims to unlock cost competitive floating wind energy through the innovative structure, which it claims can reduce platform weight by as much as 80% and costs by 50%.

The device will also be able to operate at an increased water depth compared to other floating solutions, opening up hundreds of previously technically or commercially inaccessible sites.

Ultimately, the consortium hopes to make floating wind more competitive and achieve prices of 50€/MWh (£42.8) in commercial scale wind farms.

The prototype is expected to be installed by 2020.

Alex Raventos, CEO at X1 Wind, said: "In the last decade, a number of prototypes have successfully proven floating wind is technically feasible but costs need to be reduced by at least 50%. Technology disruption is required to achieve large-scale competitive floating offshore wind.

"Together with a consortium of nine cutting edge research and development institutions and industry partners, we plan to demonstrate the advantages of our innovative PivotBuoy system."

Written by

Bruna Pinhoni

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