Floating wind developer Hexicon has appointed China's Mingyang as the preferred wind turbine generator (WTG) supplier for its TwinHub project in the Celtic Sea.
Hexicon has also awarded the firm the WTG front end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the project.
The 32MW project is expected to be commissioned and exporting clean power between 2025 and 2027.
“A strong and lasting collaborating with a major global WTG original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is essential in any offshore wind project and even more important when you are a first mover in floating offshore wind,” says Marcus Thor, CEO at Hexicon. "Mingyang is clearly a world class organisation with an impressive track record in offshore wind and is making significant inroads into fixed and floating offshore wind around the globe. We are very pleased to be enlisting their experience to deliver our project."
The TwinHub project will use Hexicon’s TwinWind floating foundation technology, which will support two of Mingyang’s MySE 8.0-180 WTGs to be placed on a single foundation.
Hexicon says this enables more energy to be generated in a given sea area whilst reducing the environmental impact compared with a single foundation.
“Mingyang is delighted to engage in such a special project with Hexicon as an innovative floating technology provider.” Says Dr. Wei Chen, General Manager of Mingyang Europe. "The cooperation underlines our shared vision of improving the economics of floating wind through innovation. Additionally, the TwinHub project will showcase our capabilities in offering robust and versatile offshore solutions in one of the global hotspots for floating wind, and will be a great step forward for our future business in the UK and Europe."
Hexicon says that TwinHub is the first offshore wind project in the Celtic Sea and the first floating wind project to receive a Contract for Difference (CfD) in the UK, securing 15-years of revenue support from the UK Government’s Allocation Round 4 (AR4) in July.
Hexicon says the AR4 CfD bid leveraged Hexicon’s patented technology, while benefiting from the site’s pre-existing electrical export infrastructure on the seabed and onshore.
The company says that the TwinHub project is an important steppingstone that will encourage innovation and cost reductions in the offshore wind sector, contributing towards the UK Government’s target to deploy 5GW of floating offshore wind by 2030. But it says to maximise the economic opportunities of more clean and secure renewable energy, government support to the emerging sector is essential.
The TwinHub project is working with the local supply chain and looking to act as a catalyst for bringing the economic benefits of floating offshore wind to the region, including Falmouth Port, which has a potential to play an important role in the project’s development, integration of Mingyang’s WTGs onto Hexicon’s floating foundation and ongoing operation and maintenance services of the TwinHub wind farm.