Floating Foundation for 15+ MW Offshore Wind Turbines Launches

February 28, 2023, by Adnan Durakovic

Odfjell Oceanwind has launched the Deepsea Star™ harsh environment floating wind foundation designed to support wind turbines with a capacity of 15 MW and more.

The Deepsea Star™ is a column-stabilised, semi-submersible steel design with centre wind turbine tower, designed to take the weights and loads from the 15 MW turbines which will become available for floating wind from 2025 and onwards.

The Deepsea Star™ is currently undergoing the Basic Design Approval (BDA) from DNV based on Siemens Gamesa’s SG 14-236 DD and a multi-location design basis which includes the harshest environment locations relevant for floating offshore wind globally.

”With the Deepsea Star™ we have compiled Odfjell’s 50 years learnings from operating semisubmersible structures in harsh environment conditions with 20 years’ experience in designing floating wind solutions. Stepping up to the 15MW WTGs makes floating wind relevant for larger utility scale wind parks and will be a significant contribution to lowering the LCOE in the coming years,” said Per Lund, CEO of Odfjell Oceanwind.

Lund added that the new design has now completed the model tank test and that the company’s design team is now working with the turbine supplier and DNV to complete the qualification process to a BDA level.

”Having a BDA qualified design for 15MW WTG and a multi-locational, harsh environment design basis offer developers of seabed leases in tough locations to potentially cut significant time and reduce risk in their development programs. This is particularly the case for Scotwind, INTOG and Utsira Nord. The Deepsea Star™ can also be optimised to site specific metocean data,” Lund said.