France: IDEOL Announces Industrialisation and Unveils Its Floating OW Foundation

After two years of development, IDEOL announces the industrialisation of its floating offshore wind foundation and unveils its key features.

The IDEOL solution represents a technological breakthrough from the current bottom-fixed foundation technologies.

Thanks to the exceptional dynamic behaviour of the Damping Pool® system, developed and patented by IDEOL, the floating foundation is compatible with any commercial offshore wind turbines without modification. Damping Pool® achieves reduction in floater motion by using the hydrodynamic properties of a water mass entrapped into a central well, the oscillations of which are, by design, opposed to the excitation force generated by the waves.

Based on a concrete hull built in partnership with major civil engineering companies, the IDEOL solution can scale to mass production for very large wind farms, with on-site construction, high local content and versatile construction methods, depending on site conditions and local procurement options.

Finally, with half the construction and installation costs of any other floating foundation, the IDEOL solution is competitive with bottom-fixed foundations starting from 35m water depth, making it suitable not only for the emerging deep-water market, but also for projects currently under development in the North Sea.

Initiated at the end of 2010, development of the IDEOL solution encompassed the detailed design of the foundation for several sites, representative of conditions from the most extreme North Sea projects to Mediterranean ones.

Since then, comparisons and tests have confirmed the price competitiveness of the solution and its excellent dynamic behaviour.

Basin test campaigns have been performed with a wide range of wave, wind and current conditions, with waves up to 25m height and wind up to 90 km/h, representative of the most severe operating conditions.

Finally, strategic partnerships and financing for the industrialisation phase have been secured.

This industrialisation will include the installation of two demonstrators as soon as 2014, allowing the certification of the solution on a commercial scale.

According to Paul de la Guérivière, IDEOL CEO, “The IDEOL technological breakthrough enables utilities to develop offshore wind farms without water depth constraints, looking for the best sites with the strongest wind conditions and the lowest conflicts of use. It also highlights the potential of innovations in the renewable industry to propose new solutions for the economic and energetic challenges our world is facing”.

About IDEOL :

IDEOL is a company specialised in the design and installation of innovative foundations for the offshore wind industry. Headquartered in La Ciotat in France, the company has been founded out of an extensive background in renewable energies and in the oil&gas offshore industry. IDEOL has more specifically developed a new family of floating foundations based on the Damping Pool® system, aiming at transforming the potential of offshore wind by unlocking the current water depth constraints induced by bottom fixed foundations.

IDEOL has been the prize winner both forthe 2012 wind energy Innov’Eco contest and for the 2011 Innovative Start-Ups National Challenge launched by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

[mappress]
Press Release, Septembar 18, 2012