French energy industry giant TotalEnergies has partnered with the Norwegian company Semar in the development of the innovative Honeymooring solution, which, according to TotalEnergies, will contribute to lowering the floating wind costs and reducing seabed footprint.
TotalEnergies said that floating offshore wind turbines have removed the depth constraints but raised the challenge of cost-effective, reliable mooring.
"The innovative mooring solution is expected to reduce the development costs of TotalEnergies future offshore wind projects Norway and worldwide," it said.
According to the company, mooring design is based on the traditional technologies from the mooring of oil & gas floating structures. The innovation of the Honeymooring technology is to connect floating wind turbines in a “honeycomb” network and enables new ways of applying well-proven mooring technology in new and more effective anchor-sharing configuration.
Once a turbine is installed on a floater, it is anchored to the mooring system to ensure the platform stay around an original target position while limiting motions.
According to Semar, Honeymooring enables mooring floating wind turbines in a network using shared buoys, synthetic fiber lines, and anchors, and the solution is estimated to reduce hardware cost with up to 50% compared to traditional mooring solutions based on steel chains.
TotalEnergies said it believed the solution could make marine operations more efficient and less costly, partly due to lower pre-tension and line weight in the mooring system, and opening the possibility of using smaller, less expensive vessels for marine operations.
“Thanks to our longstanding experience in the offshore oil & gas industry, we know mooring systems very well, and as we today have a large portfolio of offshore wind projects, we are proud to partner with Semar in the development of the innovative Honeymooring solution, which will contribute to lower the cost and the environmental impact of offshore wind energy,” said Olivier Terneaud, VP Offshore Wind at TotalEnergies.
“We are proud to have TotalEnergies as one of the important partners and contributors in the development of the Honeymooring™ solution. The overall project is being lifted by their support and the high-quality expertise which contribute to keep all of us in the forefront of the transformation towards green energy for the future,” said Thor Valsø-Jørgensen, CEO of Semar.
In Norway, TotalEnergies has joined forces with Norsk Havvind and Iberdrola to respond to the 4.5 GW Utsira Nord and Southern North Sea II tenders and is committed to develop Norway’s offshore wind potential, TotalEnergies said.
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