Aker Solutions and Cognite get $2 million offshore wind technology grant

Aker Solutions and Cognite have secured a $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) for an offshore wind energy technology project.

The NextWind Real Time Condition Monitoring project aims to develop a holistic digital solution that will enable monitoring the condition of an offshore floating wind farm and its impact on the environment via live data streaming.

A digital twin model of physical offshore wind assets will be developed to assess conditions and integrity management.

The real-time information is expected to allow access and analysis of data to help reduce operating expenses and maintenance costs by improving production efficiencies.

According to Aker, making this data available to a wide range of users will allow for additional understanding of environmental and wildlife impacts to help reduce mitigation.

“We look forward to employing Cognite Data Fusion to this project to help revolutionize the wind market in California through data liberation and contextualization,” said John Markus Lervik, CEO and co-founder of Cognite.

“We believe applying new digital technologies is key to accelerating the green transition and increasing adoption of sustainable solutions in offshore wind by making them more cost-effective and efficient.”

Aker Solutions and Cognite were selected for the award as part of CEC’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC), which provides grants for companies applying research and projects designed to help develop next-generation wind energy technologies.

Back in 2018, the two companies established a long-term collaboration to accelerate the development of digital solutions expected to drive major efficiencies through the entire life of an energy asset, including offshore wind projects.

The same year, the Redwood Coast Energy Authority selected a consortium of Aker Solutions, Principle Power and EDPR Offshore to enter into a public-private partnership to pursue the development of the proposed Redwood Coast offshore wind project.

The up to 150 MW floating offshore wind farm is planned to be located more than 30 km off the coast of Humboldt Bay, and is expected online in the mid-2020s.

The team intends to use this project as a case study for the new initiative.