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The US offshore wind business has been considerably at sea of late, the most recent improvement being the cancellation of three offshore leases by New York State. Nevertheless, a brand new lifeline is heaving into sight. The US-based agency Ocergy has simply welcomed a brand new investor on board to assist speed up its plans for commercializing a brand new light-weight floating wind platform, paired with a hyper-local manufacturing mannequin geared toward chopping prices and dashing up meeting.
Ocergy Who?
CleanTechnica has spilled loads of ink on floating wind know-how, which unlocks new offshore wind websites in waters which are too deep for standard fixed-platform development (see tons extra floating wind tales right here).
Ocergy is new to the CleanTechnica radar, so we’ve got some catching as much as do. The San Francisco startup launched in 2019 as a bi-national undertaking with a workplace in France, aiming to convey acquainted cost-cutting industrial practices to the rising area of floating wind.
The corporate’s signature product is OCG-Wind, a floating platform for offshore wind generators that displays three key design rules.
One is a low Levelized Value Of Electrical energy, which refers to a foundation for evaluating completely different sorts of electricity-producing techniques. Ocery attributes the low LCOE of its floating platform to its mild weight and a concentrate on minimizing capital expenditures.
One other precept entails the power of offshore wind generators to generate electrical energy at or near 100% of the time.
The third design precept pertains to the economic course of angle. Ocergy describes its manufacturing system as “large-scale deployment, enabled by full modularity with particular person parts that may be fabricated and transported effectively and assembled close to the wind farm web site.”
“The light-weight modular hull may be fabricated and assembled in a completely industrial method, maximizing the flexibleness to make use of native and international provide chains,” Ocergy emphasizes.
Extra Floating Platforms For Larger Offshore Wind Generators
Ocergy has additionally centered its consideration on a platform design that may accommodate at the moment’s technology of supersized wind generators.
That’s no small feat. Not like platforms affixed to the ocean ground, floating platforms have to account for the power of each wave and swell, along with constructing in resistance to stormy climate.
The Ocergy strategy entails tweaking the standard three-column platform design so as to add a fourth column, enabling the turbine to take a seat in a central place. As described by Ocergy, the platform is a tensegrity construction, held along with tendons that join the pairs of outer columns close to their tops and bottoms. The soundness of the four-column design additionally helps scale back the motion of the platform in response to waves, which helps to enhance the effectivity of the wind turbine.
When it comes to quayside operations, Ocergy additionally notes that distributing the burden amongst 4 columns, as an alternative of three, permits for the platform to take a seat in shallower water, doubtlessly opening up extra native development websites in comparison with platforms that require deeper water. The four-column design additionally streamlines the development course of by avoiding the necessity to re-balance the platform whereas the turbine is being assembled.
“Turbine meeting may be carried out with current cranes appropriate to deal with the burden and peak of recent commercial-size offshore wind generators,” Ocergy additionally explains.
Slicing The Value Of Offshore Wind
One other factor of the technique is to make use of metal, which is lighter than the concrete hulls utilized in some floating platforms. “This eases closing meeting and using a crane to carry out the load-out operation and permits environment friendly fabrication utilizing metal pipe factories,” Ocergy observes.
The modular fabrication/native meeting strategy is changing into a well-recognized function of the offshore wind business, so it’s no shock to see Ocergy designing their platform round that system.
“By fabricating element globally and assembling them near the undertaking web site, a broader provide chain may be focused, and the absolutely commissioned generators may be put in offshore on the fee of at the very least one unit per week, a key requirement for the financial viability of commercial-scale floating offshore wind tasks,” Ocergy explains.
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Assembling The Staff
Contributing to the hassle is Ocergy investor Moreld Ocean Wind, a Norwegian agency that describes itself as a “pure play unbiased know-how, product, and options supplier for the Floating Offshore Wind Trade, established for the aim of executing giant, advanced offshore wind tasks on an EPCI [Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation] foundation.”
Moreld earmarked Ocergy for funding again in April of 2021, aiming to leverage modular development to perform the objective of putting in a complete wind farm in only one season. The corporate has additionally cemented relationships with its Moreld Apply engineering department in addition to different stakeholders together with the consulting agency World Maritime and the automated techniques agency Origo Options.
For the document, Moreld Ocean Wind and the Moreld Group come underneath the umbrella of the highly effective personal fairness investor HitecVision. The agency started within the oil and gasoline business 30 years in the past and is making a pivot into clear tech.
Within the newest information from Ocergy, earlier this week the fast-moving agency Octopus Vitality introduced that its newly shaped Vector offshore wind fund has additionally lent its monetary firepower to assist convey the brand new floating platform to market.
“The inexperienced tech disruptor is already working with over a dozen main builders throughout a number of gigawatts (GW) of tasks, with their first foundations to be put in by 2025/26, Octopus enthused in a press launch dated April 24.
“Octopus’ funding will assist commercialise Ocergy’s tech and gasoline the corporate’s fast growth into new markets. It should additionally allow it to develop its cutting-edge environmental information and biodiversity monitoring system,” Octopus added, referring to the brand new information assortment buoy developed by Ocergy.
New Life For The US Offshore Wind Trade
The US offshore wind business has been attempting to hit a shifting goal towards the shifting winds of presidency policy-making and new know-how developments ever for the reason that ill-fated Cape Wind undertaking started to select up steam through the Obama administration, solely to run aground just some years later.
New York State gives a great illustration of the on-again, off-again, on-again monitor of offshore wind improvement. Earlier this week the information group Engineering Information-Report offered a great rundown of the most recent kerfuffle, which started again in 2023 when GE Vernova introduced that it couldn’t ship the large 18-megawatt offshore wind generators initially deliberate for 3 completely different wind farms underneath New York’s purview.
The alternative generators weighed in at 15.5-16.5 MW capability, which New York officers decided weren’t in keeping with the phrases of the unique contracts, so there went roughly 4 gigawatts of offshore wind potential up in smoke, or not, because the case could also be. ENR additionally reported that New York is already looking for to speed up 2.6 gigawatts of alternative and/or rebidded contracts for offshore wind.
In the meantime, offshore wind exercise has been choosing up elsewhere in New York and alongside the East Coast, the place coastal situations are ripe for standard fixed-platform wind farm development. The Pacific coast is the place the majority of the US floating wind deployment will happen, and Ocergy might hit that candy spot the place coverage and know-how converge.
Hold a watch out for different new cost-cutting applied sciences within the floating wind area as nicely, comparable to a brand new deep-sea connection system supported by the US Division of Vitality.
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Picture (cropped): The US startup Ocergy is readying a modular, hyper-local, cost-cutting system for manufacturing new floating wind platforms (courtesy of Ocergy).
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