In response to the UK Government’s £100/MWh target cost for offshore wind, UK-based engineering and consultancy company Enventi have announced the launch of a comprehensive study to examine the benefits of a floating wind solution.
The UK Government’s recent Electricity Market Reform (EMR) proposals highlighted the key role that offshore wind can play in future UK energy policy, but it equally made clear that this was dependent on a substantial reduction in the cost of energy from today’s level of around £175/MWh to £100/MWh by 2020.
Paul Lavelle, Enventi’s Technical Director believes that despite various initiatives looking seriously at cost reduction, conventional methodologies such as those in use today cannot be used as a starting point. “At Enventi, we have huge experience in the design and installation of infrastructure in offshore environments and we know that moving to far-shore locations with intermediate water-depths such as the majority of UK Round 3 sites will only result in higher costs. And recent announcements such as Vestas’ profit warning on an already deflated EBIT margin tell us that cost reduction coming from the procurement-portion of capital costs will be difficult at best. Such issues raise the question: where will the savings really come from if meaningful cost reduction is to be achieved?”
“Instincts tell us however, that a floating solution offers huge potential in cost reduction and we have therefore launched this detailed study with the aim of conceptually validating a generic floating solution both technically and economically. The study is being led by individuals with vast experience of offshore installation and marine operations and supported by industry leading organisations in areas such as mooring systems, floater design and fabrication methodologies. In other words, this is not an academic-led exercise, an approach which we feel is overly prevalent throughout the offshore wind industry today.
We are already well advanced with basic technical and economic modeling and, depending on initial outcomes, we may proceed to full life-cycle cost-analysis if sufficient appetite exists”.
Enventi aim to have preliminary findings available within about 4- 63 weeks.
[mappress]
Source: enventi, November 01, 2011