Development of an innovative Single Point Mooring system to reduce the LCoE of Floating Offshore Wind

There are several floating wind concepts under development, most of them proposing to use multiple mooring lines to fix the position of the platform. In the recent years, an increasing number of floating concepts are proposing to use a single point mooring system instead of multiple moorings points to allow the system to self-align passively with the wind. This allows redesigning the floating structure to reduce its weight as well as potentially removing the need for active orientation and active ballast systems no longer required.
The PivotBuoy project, awarded under the H2020 program, has the objective is to reduce the current the Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) of floating wind by 50% through the validation of the “PivotBuoy® system”, an innovative single point mooring system that aims to reduce the costs of mooring systems and floating platforms, allows faster and cheaper installation and a more reliable and sustainable operation.
A prototype of the PivotBuoy system will be installed at PLOCAN’s test site in the Canary Islands in Autumn 2020. The manufacturing of the system is already underway and will be presented at the FOWT conference, showing how this innovative system can drastically reduce installation and mooring costs of floating offshore wind.
The impact of the proposed innovations are expected to be sector wide: the system can be integrated not only in the increasing number of floating wind platforms using single point moorings systems but also in other sectors such as wave and tidal energy systems or fish farms using this kind of moorings.
The project consortium, coordinated by X1 Wind brings 9 industry and academic partners including WAVEC, Intecsea, EDP CNET, DNV GL, DTU, DEGIMA, PLOCAN and ESM to develop and validate this innovative subsystem.