SAITEC Unveils New Floating Wind Platform

Spanish engineering company SAITEC presented its floating platform for offshore wind applications – SATH© – at EWEA Paris 2015 on 19 November.

SATH (Swinging Around Twin Hull) is a floating solution made of concrete, comprising two twin hulls bonded to a single point, with a bearing that allows the platform to swing around this point. The Single Point Mooring approach, commonly employed in the oil & gas industry, reduces the pressure on the platform, the company explained.

Luis González-Pinto Barrenetxea, Head of Renewable Energy in SAITEC, told Offshore WIND that the SATH project started three years ago, and the platform was first presented in April this year. “We have waited to have a solid developed solution before going public.” In November, the company used the opportunity to showcase its floating wind solution to a greater audience at the EWEA event in Paris. “There we did a more developed presentation focused on economic analysis.”

In 2014, the SATH platform has gone through intensive test campaign with several scale models in the water tanks of Instituto de Hidráulica Ambiental and University of Cantabria, which demonstrated its performance in operational and extreme environmental conditions.

The company plans to have a detailed design of a full scale prototype next year, with the prototype installed and operating in 2017. In 2018/2019, SAITEC expects to have finished testing and certification of the platform and to participate in tenders.

The company pointed out that the main advantage of its platform is the capacity to reduce Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE), targeting both Capital and Operational Expenditures, making it cost-competitive to monopile foundations.

Image: SAITEC

(Article first published on 26 November, updated at 9:00 a.m. on 27 November.)