French and Danish set up offshore wind partnership

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed as a first step towards combining the two firms’ knowhow to ‘strengthen the competitiveness and environmental integration of the offshore wind industry’.

The companies say they will work on two main areas: research and innovation, and the development of services based on software solutions.

At the heart of the partnership will be integration and modelling: ie looking at the interaction between wind farms, nature and sea states; assessing the impact of turbulence and wake in turbine design; and reducing uncertainties in extreme conditions.

“France Energies Marines and DHI pursue the same ambitions to contribute to the sustainability of this industry through delivering solutions, expertise and software enabling to optimise the integration of wind farms in the environment and support cost reduction,” said Herveline Gaborieau, executive director of France Energies Marines.

Both Denmark and France are ramping up their offshore wind sector, with 72 projects in France, according to analyst 4C Offshore, at various stages (so far just five are operating, it says). Denmark, where the first offshore wind farm, Vindeby, was installed in 1991, has 126 projects on the go, of which 16 are operating.

“This partnership is based on our common purpose to support the green transition by converting research and innovation into solutions and knowledge that help solve bottlenecks and challenges in the offshore wind sector,” said Mikael Kamp Soerensen, executive vice president of Energy and Water Resources at DHI. “We see strong synergies in the expertise of DHI and France Energies Marines when it comes to marine biodiversity, metocean modelling and design conditions and I look forward to seeing our strategic partnership evolve through research projects and helping clients in the global offshore wind sector.”