Floating offshore wind represents a transformative opportunity for Ireland's renewable energy sector. With its significant wind resources and vast sea areas, Ireland is well-positioned to become a leader in offshore wind energy. However, realizing this potential involves navigating numerous technical challenges, from infrastructure limitations to regulatory hurdles. This blog post dives into the insights shared during a recent presentation by Marcus Gay, Commercial Manager at Blackfish Engineering, and Alan Henry from Rockall Research. Their discussion sheds light on the current state of floating offshore wind in Ireland, the risks involved, and the strategies being developed to overcome these challenges.
Ireland's Offshore Wind Potential
Ireland's geographical location in the Northeast Atlantic makes it an ideal candidate for offshore wind energy, due to its powerful and consistent wind resource which is amongst the best in the world. The Irish government has set an ambitious target of developing 37 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2050. A significant portion of this target, around 25 to 30 gigawatts, is expected to come from floating offshore wind projects, particularly along the west and south coasts where water depths exceed 50 meters.
Technical Challenges to Face
While the potential is vast, the path to harnessing floating offshore wind energy in Ireland is fraught with technical challenges:
Infrastructure Gaps
According to the 'Support Infrastructure for Marine Renewables in Ireland' report, which we'll take a look at in more detail later, Ireland currently lacks the necessary port infrastructure to support the assembly, /installation and maintenance of large offshore wind turbines that is required to meet the 2050 goals. Ireland’s slow delivery of new suitable port infrastructure is a key determining factor and a significant risk that project developers will have to rely on non-Irish ports, massively increasing turbine installation times and thus increasing capital requirements for a given project, and ultimately the cost of energy for the Irish consumer. These turbines, some of which are close in height to the Eifel Tower, also require highly specialized facilities and significant space for their construction, deployment, and storage. Furthermore, compared to its European counterparts such as Norway or the Netherlands, Ireland's maritime industry is relatively small, with a valuation of just 1.23 billion euros as of 2022. This limits the availability of skilled labour, and specialized vessels needed for offshore wind projects.
Grid Connectivity:
The West of Ireland, where the wind resource is most abundant, is reported to suffer from relatively weak grid connections. Strengthening these connections is essential for integrating the generated wind energy into the national grid and ensuring a stable energy supply. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines and subsea cables are crucial technologies that need to be developed and implemented to handle the power output from offshore wind farms.
Weather Conditions
Ireland's favourable wind conditions also bring challenging weather conditions; the average annual wave height off the west coast is between 2.5-3m while at the Hywind floating wind park, this value is a more moderate 1.8m. Such large wave heights can hinder the installation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines, resulting in project delays and cost increases. Hence, advanced weather forecasting and real-time monitoring systems are necessary to optimize installation and maintenance schedules, ensuring safety and efficiency.
Regulatory and Planning Hurdles
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has funded a number of projects in this space through their RD&D programme. The SIMREI (Support Infrastructure for Marine Renewables in Ireland) project which finished in 2023, was led by Rockall Research with partners Wave Venture and MMCC Port Marine, made use of Wave Venture's commercial TEMPEST software to identify key risk areas for offshore wind, with a specific focus on port-infrastructure. The DIFOWT (De-risking Ireland’s Floating Offshore Wind Targets) project, again led by Alan Henry and his team at Rockall Research, looks to build on the findings from the SIMREI project to help bring Ireland even closer to its 2050 targets. This project retains Wave Venture and MMCC Port Marine and is further strengthened by the addition of Wind Energy Ireland as a project partner who leads stakeholder engagement and dissemination activities.
De-risking offshore wind in Ireland
A number of projects are being undertaken across the Irish renewable industry in order to de-risk future offshore wind projects and allow the country to take advantage of its relatively untapped potential. The SIMREI (Support Infrastructure for Marine Renewables in Ireland) project, led by Rockall Research with partners Wave Venture and MMCC Port Marine, made use of Wave Venture's bespoke TEMPEST software to identify key risk areas for offshore wind, with a specific focus on port-infrastructure. The DIFOWT (De-risking Ireland’s Floating Offshore Wind Targets) project, led by Alan Henry and his team at Rockall Research, looks to build on the findings from the SIMREI project to help bring Ireland even closer to its 2050 targets.
What were the key findings of SIMREI?
Using TEMPEST to simulate the installation, operations and maintenance of Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) farms in Ireland, the following key recommendations were identified:
Each port's storage should have the capacity to store 3 full sets of components prior to assembly, with a minimum quayside capacity for assembly of 3 FOWTs. And 3 of these ports with the aforementioned capacity, working co-operatively are required to meet Irelands 2050 targets.
Due to the harsh winter weather in Ireland, significant sheltered areas for wet storage of fully assembled FOWTs are required near ports to ensure port-based assembly, or maintenance is not slowed when there are significant wait times for a sufficient weather window. Assembled turbines may then be towed from their wet storage locations to the farm when the weather suits. Rockall found that in some scenarios, a lack of wet storage resulted in the installation rates of a 1GW farm exceeding 8 years.
More vessels/fleets are required across the year to ensure full exploitation of infrequent weather windows for installation, operation and maintenance.
To enable streamlined port operations, particularly the rapid removal of assets in wet-storage areas to exploit fleeting weather windows, the C-Dart mooring solution developed by Blackfish Engineering should be employed. With the ability to scale to handle mooring loads from 1 to 1000 tonnes, and operate without the need for divers or direct shackle handling, C-Dart can contribute to the full exploitation of the Irish floating offshore wind potential. Click here for a full breakdown of our C-Dart technology.
Key Components of DIFOWT
The DIFOWT project aims to broaden the scope of de-risking efforts from just that of port infrastructure, as was mostly the case in SIMREI, and instead look at de-risking the FOW industry overall.
The high-level objectives of DIFOWT are clear: 1) Identify the key constraints on Irish FOW and their impact on FOW development. 2) Disseminate evidence-based recommendations. This project aims to complete these objectives by simulating the rollout of FOW from 2030-2050, allowing informed industry and policy decisions for Irish offshore wind.
The TEMPEST software developed by Wave Venture is again utilised to complete these simulations. TEMPEST is an advanced simulation tool that models the entire lifecycle of floating offshore wind turbines, from assembly and installation to maintenance and decommissioning. The software incorporates wind and wave hindcast data, vessel specifications, operational constraints and many more key parameters to provide a realistic assessment of project viability and risk, as quantified by breakeven points, rates of return and time taken to install, all of which are outputs of the software.
Conclusion
Floating offshore wind holds immense promise for Ireland's renewable energy future. However, realizing this potential requires overcoming significant technical challenges in port infrastructure, grid connectivity, weather conditions, and regulatory processes. Through projects like DIFOWT and SIMREI, Ireland is taking crucial steps to address these challenges and pave the way for large-scale offshore wind deployment. Collaboration between industry stakeholders, policymakers, and technology developers will be essential for achieving Ireland's ambitious offshore wind targets and contributing to a sustainable energy future.
For those interested in learning more about floating offshore wind in Ireland or collaborating on innovative renewable energy projects, please contact us at Blackfish Engineering. We are committed to supporting the development of cutting-edge technologies that drive the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable energy landscape.
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