The U.S. National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium has selected a consortium led by Principle Power for contract negotiations for a USD 850,000 grant for DeepFarm, a project that focuses on developing mooring solutions for deepwater floating offshore wind.
DeepFarm, a selection of mooring research initiatives, will help accelerate the deployment of deepwater floating wind projects by investigating innovative mooring components, each contributing to the design of a pioneering system to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE).
According to Principle Power, the project will enhance currently available open-source software tools for floating turbine design FAST.Farm & MoorDyn to optimize innovative mooring components while reducing lifecycle costs.
The project will entail the development of an open-source mooring system design coupled with an LCoE assessment of shared-anchor layouts, the company said.
The accuracy of these open-source models is expected to be bolstered through techno-economic feasibility studies of the utilized mooring hardware.
“We are looking forward to working with the key market players, world-class universities and leading research centers to deliver technical solutions for mooring systems that will underpin the competitiveness of floating wind while achieving significant cost reductions,” said Joao Metelo , CEO of Principle Power.
Other consortium partners include Aker Solutions, the American Bureau of Shipping, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Scana Offshore, and the University of Massachusetts.
Besides the DeepFarm project, the National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium selected start-up RCAM Technologies to develop its modular concrete offshore wind foundation as part of the second round of wind research and development projects.