A consortium behind a project called Verti-Go has secured EUR 15 million from Horizon Europe to demonstrate SeaTwirl’s floating wind technology with a 2 MW turbine, including the design, fabrication, installation and operation.
The project was selected as the successful applicant for funding under the EU programme Demonstrations of innovative floating wind concepts in May this year. Horizon Europe then invited the consortium into the grant preparation stage of the funding call, which has now been finalised with the signing of the grant and consortium agreements.
The project is led by SeaTwirl as the technical coordinator and the University College Cork as the project coordinator, with consortium partners EDP – Cnet Centre for New Energy Technologies SA, Greenov, Next Fabrication, Sub Connected AB, Sowento, RSTER, PNO, Bureau Veritas, and Zorlu Enerji. The project advisory board includes DNV.
Work on the Verti-Go project will start with the design phase, kicking off on 1 October 2025.
The design phase is estimated to be completed around the end of 2026, followed by the construction and operations phase that is planned to last until the end of 2029, according to SeaTwirl.
SeaTwirl’s technology incorporates a floating vertical axis wind turbine (VAWTT) with a tower placed on an underwater structure, which consists of a buoyancy component and a keel at its lowest point.
The divisible wind turbine allows for the entire generator and bearing housing to be replaced just above the water surface, which is said to reduce costs for both installation and maintenance, and minimise downtime.
A 30 kW S1 prototype turbine was launched and installed at the Lysekil test site in Sweden in 2015.
Last year, SeaTwirl granted a concession for the METCentre offshore test site in Norway, where the Swedish company plans to install its 1 MW S2x floating wind platform.
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