DNV Global Solutions Ltd has been contracted by the Carbon Trust to undertake a comparative study of lifted versus floated gravity base structures for offshore wind farms.
The study involves cost assumptions of both the manufacturing/construction and the marine operations (transport and lowering/ballasting).
The Carbon Trust is aiming to reduce costs of offshore wind energy, and is finding ways to achieve this through research and development within its Offshore Wind Accelerator programme.
The Foundations Technical Working Group of the OWA has performed a Concrete Benchmarking Study with the aim of down-selecting the most promising concepts. This study has shown that there is a differentiation between the overall costs of floated concepts against lifted concepts.
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Offshore WIND Staff, January 6, 2014; Image: BAM – Van Oord