Scottish Floater Opts for Stiesdal Foundations

Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm (PFOWF) consortium has selected Stiesdal Offshore’s TetraSub as the floating foundation technology for the 100 MW Pentland floating offshore wind farm located off the north coast of Scotland.

Developed by Henrik Stiesdal, the Tetra concept is the world’s first fully industrialised floating offshore technology offering a lightweight and cost-effective floating foundation made up of factory-made modules, according to PFOWF’s press release.

Manufacturing does not take place at the quayside and instead, these ready-made modules are assembled in ports using existing infrastructure to form a complete foundation.

The process reduces both manufacturing hours and transportation costs, the developer said, and enables the assembly to take place domestically within local ports.

Stiesdal’s tank testing work at the University of Edinburgh’s FloWave research facility exposed the TetraSub concept to conditions similar to those found at many floating offshore wind sites such as Pentland.

The tests assessed the robustness, reliability, and effectiveness of the floating foundation technology.

“This project will support us to meet market demands for low-cost and fast deployment of floating wind technology, advancing the next generation of floating offshore wind turbines with capacity of 14 MW and more”, said Peder Riis Nickelsen, CEO at Stiesdal Offshore.

The project team has been working together with Scottish Enterprise via its Scottish Development International and Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service teams and DeepWind Offshore Wind cluster to introduce Scottish companies for supply chain opportunities at all levels.

“Floating offshore wind presents huge potential not only for Scotland’s economy, but for companies the length and breadth of the country to take advantage of significant manufacturing and supply chain opportunities”, said Suzanne Sosna, Director of Economic Opportunities and Climate at Scottish Enterprise.

The floating wind project is being developed by Highland Wind Limited, which is majority-owned by a fund managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) with Hexicon as a minority shareholder. Project development activities are being led by CIP’s development partner, Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP). 

At the beginning of the year, the project received GBP 9.6 million of UK government funding to develop and demonstrate a suite of UK-manufactured innovative floating wind technologies for the first time.

In July, the PFOWF consortium decided to reduce the area of the floating wind farm site by half and the number of turbines being installed from ten to seven. This was followed by the developer’s submission of the development consent application to Marine Scotland.

Once completed in 2026, the Pentland floating offshore wind project is estimated to provide enough green energy for almost 70,000 homes per year, approximately 65 per cent of those in the Highland Council area.

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