Akselos Digital Twin Software Selected for Norwegian Floater

Akselos has been commissioned by the partners behind the TetraSpar floating foundation demonstration project in Norway to provide its structural simulation software, Integra®, to model the floater.

The software is said to help accelerate the demonstration of the industrialised TetraSpar floating offshore foundation, which aims to dramatically reduce the levelised cost of energy (LCoE) of floating wind.

Earlier this month, assembly and installation of the TetraSpar Demonstrator floating wind turbine was completed at the Port of Grenaa in Denmark, with the fully assembled turbine soon to be towed to the Marine Energy Test Centre, near Stavanger, southeast Norway.

Akselos’ software will enable the ‘Digital TetraSpar’ to interface with sensors on the structure and act as a detailed, holistic structural model of the demonstrator. This will allow for the entire structure, operating in real offshore conditions, to be analysed in near real-time and to provide insights to drive further improvements in the design and operation of the concept, ultimately leading to lower levelised cost of energy (LCoE).

“Commercialization of floating offshore wind, which is vital to our ability to meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement, is hampered by the high cost of existing designs and subsequently operating them. The TetraSpar concept could completely change that and, by using Integra®, the developers will be able to further optimise design and accelerate validation. That will, in turn, be key to get the concept to market sooner”, said Michiel van Haersma Buma, VP Customer Success at Akselos.

The TetraSpar floating wind foundation was developed by Stiesdal Offshore Technology, which teamed up with TEPCO Renewable Power, Shell, and RWE on the TetraSpar Demo project.

“Shell is focused on identifying and developing the next generation technologies to help accelerate the energy transition”, said Steven Zijp, Project Engineer Offshore Wind at Shell. “The partnership between Akselos, TetraSpar, RWE and Shell enables us to further scale and manage floating offshore wind turbines, making them safer and more cost efficient, while allowing developers access to deeper and more challenging waters around the world”.

For Akselos, this is the second floating wind contract, after the company’s structural digital twin software has already been deployed on the WindFloat Atlantic project under a grant from the US Department of Energy.