CROWN Spar Floating Offshore Wind Platform Gets DNV Nod

DNV has issued a Statement of Feasibility for the CROWN Spar offshore wind floating platform concept developed by the Spanish ship design and offshore engineering company Seaplace.

DNV’s Statement of Feasibility verifies new concepts and opens the door to innovative platform designs with a potential to further reduce the costs of offshore floating wind, DNV said.

With its reduced draft length compared to traditional spar-type floating platforms, Seaplace’s CROWN spar concept is designed to reduce both the capital (CAPEX) and operation expenditure (OPEX) for floating wind by simplifying the manufacture and installation of platforms, with a design for manufacturing approach and a good life cycle performance., DNV said.

As a key early milestone in the platform’s development, DNV was contracted to verify the concept for loads analysis, structural design, stability, and global motion analysis (seakeeping and station-keeping).

The verification was carried out towards requirements given in the DNVGL-ST-0119 standard for floating wind turbine structures and resulted in a Statement of Feasibility, with no non-conformities found.

”Seaplace’s CROWN spar platform is a novel concept with potential to reduce the cost of floating wind generation,” said Kim Sandgaard-Mørk, Executive Vice President for Renewables Certification at DNV.

”Such innovation is essential for the future growth of floating wind, but innovation always brings uncertainty. By achieving the Statement of Feasibility, Seaplace has shown to potential partners that the CROWN spar concept is a promising candidate for further development with a realistic chance of a return on investment.”

With its ability to operate in deeper waters, floating wind power has the potential to bring affordable, low-carbon electricity to much more of the world’s population. Consequently, DNV predicts in its latest floating wind report that the technology will grow from 100 MW today to over 250 GW by 2050, driven by dramatic reductions in the levelized cost of energy (LCoE).

”Independent verification by a partner with DNV’s track record in renewable energy will help us build wider confidence in our new CROWN spar platform concept,” said Santiago de Guzmán, Director of Offshore projects at Seaplace.

”In addition, thanks to its wide-ranging technical expertise, DNV could provide us with recommendations for subsequent stages of the project that will help us further develop the concept towards particular applications.”

The CROWN Spar project is developed jointly by Seaplace, Sowento, and Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE) – University of Stuttgart.

The goal of the project is to design a Reduced-Draft Spar (RDS) floating platform to support a 10+ MW wind turbine.

The RDS, made of concrete, is cheap, mass-producible, and barely moves the nacelle, the developers said.