Moderated by: Olav Brakstad, ClampOn and Stig Instanes, TechnipFMC

13:20 - 13:40

Joint Industry Project (JIP) to fast-track floating wind substations
Frida Mattson - DNV 

DNV will present the progress in addressing technical challenges and establishing an industry-wide standard for floating substations. The substation is a key structure for an offshore wind farm as it unlocks transmission of energy to the consumer. For foreseen remote and deep-water floating wind farms, the design of substations is at present an unsolved challenge, although different concepts are under development. To help the wind industry address one of its bottle-necks for future scaling of floating wind, DNV has initiated a JIP, that will define design and qualification requirements and a standard for floating substations.

In recent years, the wind industry has increasingly turned towards floating wind. Initially focusing on the challenges involved with one or a few turbines, substations come as a next step when considering scaling-up to wind farms. This involves pushing technology limits. For example, dynamic export cables are typically of a higher specification than array cables. This JIP looks at robust methods for avoiding e.g. fatigue failures and associated risk for loss of production. For the substation power components onboard the floater, the combination of performance requirements and exposure to marine motions represent new technology. The JIP maps out the potential consequences involved and addresses how to qualify this technology and whether it sets limitations to floater and mooring design. Wind farm developers, suppliers and TSO’s and DNV are behind the JIP results, which will be applicable industry-wide and captured in standards to drive standardization, lower project risk and cost and provide basis for future certification.

13:40 - 14:00

ScotWind - maximising subsea technology to develop competitive floating wind
Emilie Brackman - Magnora Offshore Wind 

Magnora Offshore Wind is developing sustainable offshore wind energy for new generations and in cooperation with local communities. In January 2022 the company was allocated an option lease to develop a floating offshore wind farm of about 500MW off the coast of the North-western part of Scotland. The project is located in one of Scotland’s toughest environmental conditions with mean wind speeds of 11.4m/s and wave heights of 2.2m, which will drive the need for innovative solutions to make the project competitive.

Magnora Offshore Wind believes that floating offshore wind, through active development of three categories of technologies, will be competitive and by that be an important part of the solution to meet the climate targets. The presentation will focus on the following categories of technologies:

1. Energy storage technologies to even out energy production, making wind power more attractive for consumers and developers/producers
   
   
2. Combined energy production to increase efficiency of area allocation, related to combination of wind, hydrogen, tidal, wave
   
   
3. Technologies related to cost reduction by marinizing existing offshore solutions

For more information about the company and our projects see: magnoraoffshorewind.com

14:00 - 14:20

Subsea HV Substations for Offshore Wind and Electrification
Knut Rognve and Truls Normann - ABB and Aker Solutions 

As part of the energy transition Aker Solutions has developed a novel Subsea Transformer Substation concept for Electrification and Offshore Wind.

One of the most revolutionary subsea technological developments implemented has been the subsea compression system installed at the Åsgard field, offshore Norway. It has been in continuous operation since September 2015. This has proven feasibility of installing a compressor on the seabed, and at the same time verified all power and automation system technologies required for the control and operation. This includes large subsea transformers, power cables and high voltage (HV) wet mate connectors.

Today, the rapidly expanding offshore wind power industry could benefit from utilizing some of these HV power technologies recently qualified for subsea processing applications. Many of the subsea power technologies, skills and expertise gained in the O&G industry can be adapted for offshore wind applications.

In this paper, Aker Solutions will present the concept of a subsea HV substation applied to collection of power from offshore floating wind parks. Both the system characteristics and the individual power technology features that are required to make the substation compact, efficient and reliable, are emphasized. In addition, the differences and benefits of a subsea versus a floating substation will be highlighted.

The same technology can also be used for power-from-shore systems for electrification of offshore platforms. The benefits of having a subsea hub for distribution to multiple brownfield and greenfield platforms will be highlighted, with particular focus on significantly reducing the complexity of expensive topside modifications and pre-investments.

14:20 - 14:40

Unlocking the potential of deep-water locations - Floating wind & Storage
Helge Myrvang - Subsea 7 

Floating offshore wind is predicted to be a key contributor in the energy market throughout the next decade. Most areas open for floating wind farms today are in water depths ranging from 70- 250 m. However vast areas with high and more predictable wind resources could be unlocked by looking to areas of greater water depths.

Greater water depths ranging up to 1000m and above does not necessarily imply greater cost, as these depths would unlock a conceptual change for the mooring and cable systems. Further to this, the access to deeper water with high hydrostatic pressure could unlock the economy for deep-water energy storage solutions.

Deeper water locations could provide further benefits from reduced interaction with other users, such as fishery and ship traffic. Improved capacity factors are expected, which will increase annual production and could more than offset any additional investments related to mooring and cable system.

Ongoing work is evaluating shared mooring patterns, simplified cable solutions, combined with innovative energy storage systems. This combines the unique Norwegian know- how from complex marine operations, hydropower as well as offshore concrete structures. We believe that deploying this knowledge can unlock areas of the deep.