Ocean Ventus – The Full Lifecycle FOWT Solution

Installed offshore wind capacity is expected to reach 650 gigawatts (GW) globally by 2050 and the vast majority of this will be in deepwater requiring floating solutions.

In the UK, concessions for 17.9 GW of floating wind have already been awarded and in Norway the government has plans for 30 GW offshore wind by 2040, 75% floating. If all of these are 15 MW units, the world could see years with over 2,000 new FOWTs being installed.

Still, the Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) industry is in its infancy with only a few FOWTs in operation, and some of these have already encountered severe problems after few years of operation and are being towed back to shore for repairs. The current Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) of FOWTs is high, and the industry is dependent on heavy government funding to develop offshore wind farms.

Attractive alternative for investors

Ingvar Apeland, the Ocean Ventus CEO, aims to change this and make the FOWT industry profitable without government funding, and for Ocean Ventus to be an attractive alternative for investors.

Ingvar Apeland 

CEO, Ocean Ventus 

“Based on our extensive knowledge and decades of experience from designing floating units for the oil & gas industry, our engineers have designed a substructure for FOWTs that is lighter and more efficient than any other known FOWT design. The main CAPEX element in FOWT substructure design is weight and fabrication cost, and Ocean Ventus has designed a substructure that is about 40% lighter than competing solutions, and thereby also roughly 40% less costly” says Apeland.

Environmentally friendly

To meet the targets of governments around the world, the Ocean Ventus CEO believes the FOWT industry must change dramatically and be more like the monopile industry for bottom fixed wind turbines.

“Use of existing shipyards for substructure fabrication must be abandoned, and new efficient production facilities need to be built. The Ocean Ventus prefab factory is fully automated and is dedicated to producing Ocean Ventus substructures at a rate of more than one substructure per week. An LoI for the first factory in Norway is in place, and the concept is applicable globally.” Apeland continues.

“Assembly of the Ocean Ventus FOWT is done on dedicated barges. This means that assembly can be carried out in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner without the need for large land areas behind the quay front, and thus opens for assembly at many otherwise inaccessible locations. Ideally, prefabrication and assembly should be done at the same location to minimize both transportation cost and emissions.” Apeland explains.

Service and repairs of FOWTs have so far been expensive for wind farm operators as the FOWTs have had to be towed back to shore for heavy maintenance, causing significant costs and long down-time periods with loss of revenue.

“With the Ocean Ventus specially designed service vessel even the heaviest maintenance and repair jobs can be handled in the field in the matter of days without having to disconnect the FOWT from its moorings and power cable, giving huge OPEX savings and almost eliminating turbine downtime.”  Apeland concludes.

In summary, the Ocean Ventus design lowers LCOE significantly and is now being considered for several wind farm development projects. The majority owner of Ocean Ventus is NYMO, part of the J.J. Ugland Group in Grimstad, Norway.