Activity ramping up on Irish floating wind test site

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) is busy with bringing forward its Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site (AMETS), a floating wind and wave energy technology test site which has been in development for several years now. Along with offshore surveys scheduled for next month, SEAI has also commenced work on procuring an onshore substation and a floating LiDAR for AMETS.

The Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site was initially planned to be a grid-connected site for testing wave energy technologies in real offshore conditions.

The maximum electricity export capacity for the entire test site is currently 10 MW, under a grid connection agreement with ESBN that has been in place since 2011.

SEAI obtained a foreshore lease for the site in 2015 to test wave energy technology and install export cables. Planning permission for the onshore infrastructure was granted in 2017. 

In 2018, SEAI started working on expanding the scope of the site to also include floating wind technology.

“AMETS was initially envisaged as a grid connected Test Site for pre-commercial wave technologies. However, Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) technology has had slower than expected development over the last 10 years. Given the location of the Test Site in one of the world’s most energetic environments, and the water depths across the site, AMETS has been identified as also being suitable for testing Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) devices”, SEAI states in a scoping report issued last year.

Back in 2019, a consortium led by the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) secured funding to test Saipem’s floating wind technology at the test site with the deployment time planned for last year.

However, in 2021, Saipem moved the technology demonstration to a test site in France, prompting EMEC, SEAI and the consortium partners to invite expressions of interest from other developers who want to be part of their project, named AFLOWT (Accelerating market uptake of Floating Offshore Wind Technology).

For AFLOWT, the project partners have a requirement to complete an Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR) before applying for a foreshore licence to test floating wind technology at AMETS. The EIAR will accompany the application expected to be submitted in 2023, under Ireland’s new Maritime Area Planning (MAP) bill.

SEAI and the AFLOWT partners will use a project design envelope (PDE) approach for the licence to enable a wider range of floating offshore wind technologies to be installed at the test site.

Located offshore Ireland’s west coast, in Mayo County, AMETS has two testing areas; AMETS A, located 16 kilometres northwest of Belderra Strand in a water depth of up to 100 metres, and AMETS B, located 6 kilometres off Belderra Strand where the water depth reaches 50 metres.

The grid connection infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the work on the site over the past few years has been focused on data collection and moving forward with the activities on obtaining the licence for floating wind testing.

In June 2022, SEAI issued the scoping report on for the AFLOWT project’s EIAR which also supports its PDE approach for the licence.

According to the report, SEAI is likely to seek for the grid connection capacity of the test site to increase to 20 MW and could designate Test Site A for floating wind technology, while Test Site B would be used to test wave energy converters (WECs).

The site investigation and resource data collection work now underway is being carried out primarily for the EIAR that will accompany the application for the floating wind licence.

According to a Marine Notice recently published by the Irish government, SEAI will start site investigation work at the two AMETS areas and the cable corridor on or around 2 March, subject to weather conditions.

The survey works will be performed by MERC Environmental Consultants and the Marine Institute, and are expected to be completed over a three-day period.

The campaign will consist of benthic, geotechnical and geophysical surveys.

The benthic survey will consist of taking 40 subtidal ‘Day Grab’ samples to identify macrofauna particle size and organic content. The work will be conducted by Dúlra na Mara, a shallow draft survey vessel.

Geotechnical and geophysical site investigations will be carried out by the survey vessel RV Celtic Explorer. The geophysical survey work will consist of running side-scan sonar, multibeam swath bathymetry, sub-bottom profiling and cone penetrating testing work.

On 22 February, SEAI opened a tender looking for consultancy and engineering services for the onshore substation which will connect AMETS to the grid.

Under the contract resulting from this tender, valued at EUR 1 million, the consultant will be wholly responsible for the delivery of the project management and engineering consultancy services for the development of the substation.

With the preliminary design already completed, the contractor will be responsible for executing all the remaining required stages of the project, from outline design development and tender activities to construction and handover.

The tender is open for submissions until 23 March.

SEAI is also currently preparing for a tender, to be launched at a later time, through which it plans to procure a floating LiDAR.

The AMETS site owner is currently gathering information and interest from companies and consortia capable of installing, operating and maintaining a floating LiDAR and providing “data as a service” for the data collected.

The floating LiDAR will be deployed at the AMETS Test Site A, located 16 kilometres northwest of Belderra Strand, with the aim of accurately recording wind speeds and direction up to 300 meters above sea level.

This will enable SEAI to provide detailed wind data to technology developers planning on testing their structures at AMETS.

While the test site is not yet in operation for developers but SEAI can offer interested developers a  suite of detailed information such as live met-ocean data measurements, numerical wave modelling reports including wave propagation and wave energy assessments, offshore site investigations including vibrocores and multi-beam surveys.