Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf opened a £9 million (€10.5 million) facility set to test and derisk technologies needed for floating offshore wind.
Offshore wind innovation body ORE Catapult and Scottish economic growth agency ETZ developed the National Floating Offshore Wind Innovation Centre, which was launched in Aberdeen today (18 March).
The centre features:
- Large-scale rigs to test and validate the strength, performance and reliability of dynamic subsea cables and anchoring systems;
- A motion simulator to test electrical and moring connections in a simulated marine environment;
- And a virtual reality studio to allow engineers to envisage scenarios likely to be faced in floating offshore wind.
ORE Catapult highlighted the growing pipeline of floating offshore wind projects planned in UK waters, including more than 19GW from the ScotWind leasing process, further projects set to power North Sea oil and gas platforms, and a new leasing round for areas in the Celtic Sea.
CEO Andrew Jamieson: “When you look at the projected global market demand for floating wind technology over the coming years, the opportunity is eye-watering – dynamic cables alone will be a more than £2 billion global market over the next decade. Here in the UK we are well-placed to play a leading role in that market by developing the supply chain to support the innovations that will bring this potential to life.”
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