BW Ideol Unveils Mass Production-Ready Floating Wind Foundation

April 26, 2024, by Adnan Memija

France-based BW Ideol has unveiled its standardised floating foundation product and a blueprint for mass production that could drive costs down across projects.

With over 22 GW already awarded in Scotland, around 8 GW in the US, and several GW currently being awarded or in the tendering phase elsewhere in the world, the floating wind is now entering an industrialization phase, said BW Ideol.

“The floating wind market is at a crossroads today: tens of gigawatts will need to be built in the coming years, requiring a change in paradigm from the floating foundation suppliers,” said Paul de la Guérivière, founder and CEO of BW Ideol.

The product is based on the Damping Pool solution, which in operation since 2018 in France and Japan.

The universal floating foundation is said to be optimised for all metocean conditions prevailing in the main floating wind markets, with three product classes adapted to different environmental conditions.

All product classes are compatible with any of the 15+ MW wind turbines and can be easily scalable to the next 20+ MW units, when available, according to BW Ideol. The standard product enables mass production by allowing multiple projects to be supplied from the same manufacturing line.

BW Ideol also unveiled its manufacturing line blueprint, easily scalable and replicable on multiple port infrastructures, for the mass production of concrete floating foundations.

The blueprint, optimising each manufacturing step, has a demonstrated capacity to produce up to one floating foundation per week, with minimal harbour requirements, said the company.

The manufacturing blueprint could drive costs down across projects and provide developers with an early guarantee on price and delivery schedule.

“We believe that adopting an approach similar to that of wind turbine manufacturers is necessary: offering a single and standard product, suitable for all geographies and turbines available on the market, produced in series based on manufacturing line serving multiple projects, so that developers can truly commit and know where they are heading,” said Guérivière.