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HEIndividual fellowship2023–2025

ShareWind · Shared anchors for floating wind turbines

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2023-07-01 → 2025-06-30
EU contribution
€211,755
Participants
3
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Shared anchors for floating wind turbines

Floating offshore wind energy is a critical component of the EU’s strategy to achieve climate neutrality, as outlined in the European Green Deal and the SET Plan. However, the high cost of current technologies hinders its widespread adoption. Mooring systems, which secure floating turbines to the seabed, account for a significant portion of these costs. ShareWind project was designed to address this economic barrier by exploring a more efficient anchoring solution: shared anchors. The overall objective of the project was to reduce the cost and environmental footprint of floating offshore wind farms by providing the scientific and engineering foundation for the use of shared anchors in clay seabeds. The project aimed to fill a critical gap in the state of the art, as there was previously no experimental data on how shared anchors perform under the complex, multidirectional loads generated by multiple floating turbines. The project's pathway to impact was structured around three core activities: - Defining realistic conditions for loads, anchor geometry, and seabed characteristics. - Conducting physical model tests in a geotechnical centrifuge to generate benchmark - data on anchor performance. - Developing and validating advanced numerical models to create reliable design guidelines for industry. The expected impact of ShareWind is twofold. Technologically, it de-risks a key innovation in offshore wind, with the potential to reduce mooring costs by approximately 16%. Societally, by making renewable energy more cost-competitive, the project contributes directly to Europe's energy transition, enhances energy security, and supports the long-term goal of a sustainable economy. The project’s commitment to Open Science ensures that its results will be widely disseminated, fostering further innovation across academia and industry.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

On the framework of the energy transition in Europe, new technologies are under research, development and implementation. One of the targets of the European Commission is by 2030 to achieve a 32% of energy capacity based on renewable sources . Offshore wind energy is one of the renewable energy sources contemplated in the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) as part of the actions for research and innovation. New potential areas with more intense and stable wind conditions and minimized visual impact on the coastline have been identified (deep waters of >60 m depth). This motivates the idea of implementing floating wind turbines as an alternative to reach deep water locations with a great potential as a step further in the offshore wind industry. One of the main challenges for this technology is the cost associated with the construction of the platforms for the wind turbines and the mooring systems to anchor the turbines in deep water. One of the solutions to optimize offshore floating wind farms costs is sharing the anchors connected to the mooring systems that secure the wind turbines when subjected to the ocean environmental laods. The research proposed here ""Shared anchors for floating wind turbines- ShareWind"", aims to provide design guidelines and evaluate the loading capacity of shared anchors installed in clayey seabed profiles as most of the research on this topic has been adressed in sands. As part of ShareWind, the applicant will (i) develop physical models of shared anchors to be tested at theUniv.Eiffel (France) geotechnical centrifuge, (ii) perform numerical simulations and parametric studies to provide design guidelines and failure envelopes of anchors subjected to multidirectional cyclic loading. The results of ShareWind will be integrated in design frameworks to predict the loading capacity and displacements of shared anchors with impacts in their long-term performance and in the optimization of costs of floating wind farms.""

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSITE GUSTAVE EIFFEL · MARNE-LA-VALLEECoordinatorFrance
  • STIFTELSEN NORGES GEOTEKNISKE INSTITUTT · OsloNorway
  • UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON · SOUTHAMPTONUnited Kingdom

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union