Ideol teams up with Hitz

FRANCE: Ideol, the French company behind the Floatgen concrete floating platform, has signed a technology partnership with Japanese industrial and engineering company Hitachi Zosen (Hitz) to design, engineer and construct floating turbines for the Japanese market.

by Jan Dodd 17 March 2015

Ideol is developing floating foundations

The floating platform, which is compatible with all existing standard offshore turbines, will be competitive with , Ideol claims.

Hitz, which entered the floating wind market in 2004, sees the partnership as a way of speeding up deployment of offshore wind in Japan.

"We are extremely pleased that one of the most strategic and knowledgeable markets for floating offshore wind has identified Ideol's game-changing solution as the one most likely to dramatically reduce the [levelised cost of energy] of commercial wind farms," said Ideol CEO Paul de la Guérivière.

Ideol plans to install a prototype of the platform, equipped with a 2MW Gamesa turbine, in French waters this summer.