Fabrication has been completed of the first Aikido One demonstrator floating wind platform. It is designed to be folded up during assembly and transport. At full scale, it could be towed to the turbine installation site by ordinary barges.
The platform was assembled in just 40 hours, in Mississippi on the US Gulf coast. Aikido Technologies claimed that this is ten times faster than assembly of a conventional floating platform.
“We estimate at full scale, we can do it in 80 working hours," CEO Sam Kanner told “uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç.
Aikido is yet to finalise plans to install a turbine on the demonstrator platform, which is sized for roughly a 100kW turbine, such as a V17 Vestas, said Kanner. The scaled-down prototype may be towed to California, he said.
“The technology can dramatically reduce construction times and increase the supply of ports and vessels that can participate in the offshore wind industry,” said the San Francisco-based company.
Aikido completed a round of equity financing in June.
The outgoing Biden administration has had an optimistic goal of deploying 15GW of floating wind capacity – off deep-water states such as California – by 2035. Floating wind technology is nascent.
The US goal may well change when the Trump administration takes office on 20 January 2025. Trump has said he will halt offshore wind deployment.
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