Floating wind to power oil and gas

The two wind farms – named Green Volt and Cenos – are a joint project between Norway-based Vårgrønn, itself a joint venture between energy company Plenitude and investor HitecVision, and Flotation Energy, which is based in Scotland and became part of the Japanese firm TEPCO Renewable Power a year ago.

The projects will be carried out under Scotland’s ’Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas’ (INTOG) leasing round, with the intention of powering the oil and gas platforms ‘to significantly reduce carbon emissions from the assets they supply’.

“The wind farms are among the most advanced offshore wind projects in Europe for the electrification and decarbonisation of oil and gas platforms,” says Flotation Energy.

“Participating oil and gas platforms will have electricity, currently generated by gas and diesel turbines, replaced by renewable energy,” said Flotation Energy CEO Nicol Stephen. “The wind farms will also deliver up to 7TWh of power back to the UK grid each year – the equivalent of 2.4 million homes.”

“Our analysis shows that floating wind will provide more than half of the UK’s offshore wind generation by 2050, bringing more than £43 billion in economic value and more than 29,000 jobs,” said senior policy analyst on emerging technologies Laurie Heyworth, at government agency RenewableUK.

Flotation Energy has ongoing projects in the UK and Ireland that include fixed-bottom wind farms as well as floating.

The company is also working on projects in Australia and Japan, and says the fixed-bottom Seadragon project at Gippsland will be one of Australia’s largest offshore wind farms, with a 1.5GW generation capacity.

It is working on another two wind farms in Australia and a floating offshore wind farm 40km off the Prefecture of Niigata in Japan, which will generate 1GW of electricity, it says.

Finally, a 1.2GW floating wind farm is being developed off the coast of Hsinchu, Taiwan.