Ocergy Foundation Technology Picked for Salamander Pre-FEED Design

A joint venture between Simply Blue Group, Subsea 7, and Ørsted has awarded Ocergy with a pre-FEED foundation design contract for its 100 MW Salamander floating offshore wind project in Scotland.

Last year, Salamander signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ocergy to evaluate its foundation design for the development in northeast Scotland.

The project will feature Ocergy’s OCG-Wind foundation technology which was developed to support very large wind turbines (>10MW) and designed for the development of large-scale wind farms.

The company’s floating technology is targeting a levelised cost of energy (LCOE) that can start to drive reductions in floating offshore wind farms to eventually be competitive with fixed offshore wind farms, according to the press release.

“This project will demonstrate that the premise of delivering one unit per week, week after week is achievable. This is the last major industry hurdle before the deployment of large, commercial-scale, floating wind projects”, said Dominique Roddier, Ocergy’s CEO.

OCG-Wind is a semi-submersible platform designed to utilise the industrial performance of hull fabrication and assembly through the maximisation of the local supply chain.

The hull is made of three outside circular columns connected mechanically with trusses to a central column that supports the wind turbine.

A feasibility study considered all aspects of the design, technical performance, fabrication, assembly, operations and installation of the OCG-Wind for Salamander.

It also reviewed the compatibility of the OCG-Wind platform to the site, inclusive of performance, supply chain, and local content management, as well as identified schedule risks and overall project costs. This feasibility study will now progress to the pre-FEED phase, according to the press release.

“We aim to provide access to double the number of Scottish port facilities over some traditional floating concepts due to lower draft requirements”, said Huw Bell, Salamander Project Director.

“We also expect a scalable fabrication and assembly process, suitable for commercial scale deployment as well as decreasing fabricated steel mass by around a third, which will reduce the cost of energy whilst also providing potential for local fabrication.”

Located 35 kilometres off Peterhead, the Salamander floating offshore wind project is designed to provide the Scottish supply chain with an early capacity development opportunity, enabling it to play a much greater role in subsequent large-scale floating offshore wind buildout.

The project, for which geophysical and environmental survey works were completed at the beginning of this month, is intended to be progressed through the innovation track of Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round.

The 100 MW Salamander was first announced last year by Simply Blue Energy and Subsea 7. Earlier this year, Ørsted joined the joint venture and acquired a majority stake in the project.

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