DOE prize to industrialize WindFloat offshore wind technology

Global energy companies Principle Power (Emeryville, Calif., U.S.) and Aker Solutions (Fornebu, Norway) have been chosen as a winner for the second phase of the U.S. Floating Offshore Wind Readiness (FLOWIN) Prize by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The award, consisting of a $450,000 cash prize and $100,000 in technical assistance from the DOE National Labs, is being used to advance WindFloat manufacturing, supply chain and deployment plans in the U.S. market.

The FloatHOME Project aims to leverage the partners’ fourth generation, industralized offshore wind WindFloat design to evaluate and compare deployment options, considering the development of advanced, purpose-built fabrication facilities and infrastructure. The WindFloat platform will be using fiber-reinforced composite materials for some projects, a Principle Power spokesperson confirmed, though could not comment on specific details.

“We are honored to be selected for the FLOWIN Phase 2 award. We were able to extract highly valuable feedback from the supply chain to better enable project successes on the first wave of U.S. West Coast projects,” Seth Price, vice president of technology and innovation for Principle Power, says. “We are building a new industry — not just a singular project.”

According to Price, in Phase 2, Principle Power and Aker Solutions combined insights from a 75-megawatt project in operation using WindFloat, as well as feedback from domestic supply chain partners. “The work has allowed the consortium to plan for maximized automation, streamlined project execution plans and optimization of final assembly processes for serial manufacturing of low-risk solutions,” he says. 

Th next stage of the competition includes detailed designs for dedicated new facilities, redevelopment of ports, optimizations in platform design for manufacturability and design engineering refinements to lower cost and increase domestic content for floating wind projects in the U.S. 

“FloatHOME consortium has engaged large-scale fabricators and smaller supply chain partners to assess their existing capacities and specific manufacturing requirements,” Christoffer Valstad, senior vice president, renewables US at Aker Solutions, adds. “This collaborative approach has enabled the consortium to build and evaluate various scenarios for serial production and assembly of WindFloat foundations to support the vision of using purpose-built facilities to produce subcomponent modules and efficient assembly within American ports.”

The FLOWIN Prize will award a total prize pool of $5.75 million, plus vouchers for technical support from DOE national laboratories to transition floating platform technologies to serial production, while fostering competitive domestic supply chains. The second round of the FLOWIN prize awarded $450,000 to each consortium, who are now eligible to compete in the third phase of the prize.