Offshore Energy 2012: Future Offshore Wind Turbine Foundation Needs

John Best, Head of Sustainable Energy from James Fisher and Sons plc, spoke about future offshore wind turbine foundation needs at Offshore Energy Conference today.

Starting his presentation, Mr. Best pointed out that there is a vast amount of information on this “fascinating and huge subject” and people are prepared to share it.

The key subject of the presentation was the offshore floating concept, based on exploiting wind resources in deep water, with no ability to put down the jackets.

Mr. Best gave an example of countries like Japan that have almost no opportunity to put wind turbines in shallow water. He also said that there are places in the Mediterranean Sea with huge wind resources in deep water.

Following these information, Mr.Best explained that the knowledge on this matter can be drawn from the experience that the oil and gas industry had gained in the last 50 years. He said that this does not mean taking the same concept from one industry to another, but learning how to modify oil and gas floating structures to better serve the wind sector development.

Taking into account the time needed to develop an offshore wind project and predictions for power blackouts in the near future, Mr. Best warned: “We need to be getting industrial scale renewable energy on the grid as soon as possible.” He concluded that the industries need to learn from each other and develop things in parallel in order to avoid this.

[mappress]

Offshore WIND staff, October 24, 2012; Image: principlepowerinc