Reading Time: 2 minutes
During the Seanergy conference, in Normandie France, Equinor a leading floating-offshore wind developer announced a strategic collaboration with Technip Energies which is a company for leading supplier floating offshore wind substructures.
This collaboration is a result of the companies’ shared ambition to drive the industrialization and commercialization of floating offshore winds. The two companies collaborated at the beginning of the design phase for a floating windfarm project to create value and leverage complementary capabilities in technology, fabrication, and engineering.
“We view longer-term cooperation starting in an early phase as a next step in floating offshore wind development” Stated, Mette H. Ottoy Equinor’s chief procurement officer.
“We are excited about our collaboration Technip Energies which allows us further leverage and develop the floating toolbox to tailor locally adapted industrial solutions to future floating offshore wind project,” said Beate Myking senior vice president Renewables Solutions at Equinor.
To succeed in the energy transition, renewables must grow. A large portion of this will be due to the floating wind, as about 80 percent of offshore wind resources are located in deep waters and require a floating turbine solution.
Equinor, with over five decades of floating-offshore technology experience and more than twenty years of innovation in floating offshore wind technology, has created a floating toolbox that combines design principles and solutions to enable floating wind concepts to be used together.
Even though floating technology has seen a significant cost reduction, it is still difficult to commercialize.
Equinor believes that floating wind can be commercialized if technological innovation is done in partnership with suppliers. Equinor has reduced the cost of each megawatt by 70%, from Hywind Demo, the world’s largest floating turbine, to Hywind Scotland which is the world’s premier floating wind farm. The cost of Hywind Tampen, the largest floating wind farm off the coast Norway’s, is further reduced by 40%.
Myking says that “we have already begun to see early signs value creation from this method of working in our early phase floating wind projects in Southern Brittany, France and Firefly, South Korea.”
Equinor is technology-agnostic. Through our floating wind toolbox we can see that the floating concept of preference for a market will vary depending on its geography. Equinor will always choose the most suitable concept for its projects.
We believe that partnering is a necessary step towards net-zero. We are proud to have entered this strategic partnership with Equinor. Equinor is a long-standing client with whom we share a common vision, and a commitment to create a low carbon future.
