SeaSapphire, powered by Eolus and Simply Blue Group, will utilise innovative and cutting-edge floating offshore wind technologies to produce zero-carbon electricity in 4 wind parks in Sweden and Finland. The development aims to be a stepping stone to help Sweden and Finland progress towards a net-zero future and handle the increasing demand for electricity.
The Olympic Offshore Wind project will form a gateway to commercial offshore wind farms in Northern Ireland. It will provide a clean, sustainable future for everyone in the region with innovative sub-structures and will support a diverse route to market.
This project will utilise innovative and cutting-edge offshore wind technologies to produce zero-carbon electricity. The development aims to help Northern Ireland and UK to progress towards a net-zero future.
Olympic is a Offshore Wind project, with a combined capacity of up to 1.3GW, located offshore County Down in Northern Ireland. The project is in planning stage and it is aiming to secure future Contracts for Difference (the government’s main mechanism for supporting low-carbon electricity generation) which will now take place on annual basis.
The Olympic Offshore Wind will have an option to be developed in stages in-line with a stepping-stone concept that is following the philosophy that Simply Blue Group is using in the Celtic Sea. This project will provide an opportunity for the local supply chain to set up and prepare for commercial-scale opportunities offshore Northern Ireland. This will allow NI to maximise the financial benefit of its strong offshore wind resource and generate long-term jobs for its local communities while contributing to the UK government’s target of 1GW of operational offshore wind by 2030.
Courtesy: Ashit Jadav
The 2 GW Skidbladner Floating Wind Project is located 100Km South-East of Stockholm.
In 2022 the Swedish government unveiled a plan to develop offshore wind power projects with 20TWh to 30TWh of annual clean energy generation capacity. The state has identified areas in the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea and North Sea and has marked these for development.
Sweden currently uses nearly 140TWh of electricity a year, with this amount expected to increase in the future as the country phases out the use of fossil fuels in its transport and industrial sectors.
Floating wind will play an important role in the Swedish Energy mix as well as Nordpool given it can be located further from shore and therefore its visual impact is significantly reduced.
The Skidbladner Floating Wind Project is focused on a site that is environmentally friendly and technically and commercially feasible.
Please contact magnus.rosenblad@simplybluegroup.com if you have feedback on the consultation documentation. We will register and analyse your feedback for the planned Environmental Impact Assessment.
Project Documentation: EIA application consultation documentation
20220914, Samrådsunderlag Skidbladner
The 2.75GW Herkules Floating Wind project, is approximately 60 km Southeast of the Island of Gotland.
Simply Blue Group is working in collaboration with leading wind energy consultancy Wind Sweden and in total Simply Blue Group and Wind Sweden are planning on developing c. 5 GW of floating wind in Swedish waters.
In 2022 the Swedish government unveiled a plan to develop offshore wind power projects with 20TWh to 30TWh of annual clean energy generation capacity. The state has identified areas in the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea and North Sea and has marked these for development.
Sweden currently uses nearly 140TWh of electricity a year, with this amount expected to increase in the future as the country phases out the use of fossil fuels in its transport and industrial sectors.
Floating wind will play an important role in the Swedish Energy mix as well as Nordpool given it can be located further from shore and therefore its visual impact is significantly reduced.
The Herkules Floating Wind Project is focused on a site that is environmentally friendly and technically and commercially feasible.
Project Documentation: EIA Application Consultation Documentation
Should you have any feedback on the consultation documentation, please contact magnus.rosenblad@simplybluegroup.com and the team will register and analyse your feedback for the planned applications.
The huge offshore wind potential off the North Atlantic will be utilised by Nomadic Offshore Wind to help create a clean, sustainable future for everyone.
Nomadic Offshore Wind is a floating wind project, with up to 500MW of capacity, located between Northern Ireland and Islay, Inner Southern Hebrides (Scotland).
The Nomadic Offshore Wind project will utilise innovative and innovative floating offshore wind technologies to produce zero-carbon electricity. The development aims to help Northern Ireland, Scotland, and the UK (United Kingdom) to progress towards a net-zero future.
Due to its unique location, the project is currently exploring routes to market including supporting a Green Energy Park and the production of hydrogen and e-fuels. The project is currently in planning stage and will support the UK’s overall goal to decarbonise the energy system and provide increased local security of supply.
The Nomadic Offshore Wind project is a stepping-stone project that is following the philosophy that Simply Blue Group is using in the Celtic Sea. Along with a strong focus on supply chain, it will provide a platform to verify innovative routes to market solutions.
Nomadic Offshore Wind will provide an opportunity for the local supply chain to gear up for commercial-scale offshore opportunities that Northern Ireland and Scotland can offer.
This will allow both regions of the UK to maximise the financial benefit of its strong offshore wind resource and generate long term jobs for its local communities, while contributing to the UK government’s target of 1GW of operational floating offshore wind by 2030.
Floating wind foundations are normally used in deep waters where fixed foundations are no longer economically feasible. Space for fixed foundations is scarce in many countries (including the UK) as development of fixed wind projects has been happening for the last 15 years. The recent ScotWind allocation in Scotland proved the rise of Floating wind foundations with a pipeline of up to 15GW of floating wind out of total 25GW of allocation. Therefore, floating wind is going to play a particularly vital role in the development of offshore wind pipelines in many countries including Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Given previous projects have not yielded the expected supply chain benefits for Scotland, especially on the western coast, there is a need for a pre-commercial stepping-stone project to get ready for ScotWind 2.
The Nomadic Offshore Wind project aims to bridge the development gap between the ScotWind 1 and 2 projects
Western Star will harness the tremendous wind potential of the Atlantic Ocean to help create a clean, sustainable future for everyone. The project will utilise innovative and cutting-edge technologies to incorporate floating offshore wind arrays to produce zero-carbon electricity. The development aims to help Ireland progress towards a green energy future with domestically sourced sustainable electricity delivering both environmental and economic benefits to the entire country and potentially beyond.
Simply Blue Energy is developing the Western Star project off the west coast of Clare, which will consist of a floating windfarm situated at least 35km offshore.
The proposed Western Star Project will be located at least 35km off the west coast of Co. Clare. The innovative floating technology proposed for this project will allow the turbines to be located far from shore and in waters over 100m deep where traditional fixed bottom turbine foundations would be uneconomical.
The Emerald Project, situated in the Celtic Sea off the south coast of Ireland, will utilise cutting-edge Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) technology to construct a wind farm which, upon completion, will have a total installed capacity of up to 1.3 GW. This is equivalent to powering 1 million Irish homes or the capacity of the Moneypoint power station, Ireland’s largest electricity generation station.
The proposed project could transform the maritime area that previously was home to the Kinsale gas platform into a zone where renewable energy is produced from the wind. The project will also help Ireland to improve energy security and decarbonize the energy supply while playing an important role in helping the Irish government to meet its climate target of 5GW of offshore wind by 2030.
The use of floating technologies allows wind turbines to be located in deeper waters than fixed-bottom turbines. This allows the turbines to be placed further from shore (35-60km offshore) which will reduce visual impacts and gain access to better wind speeds.
The Emerald Project will initially comprise of a 300MW array, before scaling up to a 1GW offshore floating wind farm. This stepping-stone approach presents an opportunity to develop the local supply-chain.
The Salamander project will harness the offshore wind potential of the North Sea to help create a clean, sustainable future for everyone.
This project will utilise innovative and cutting-edge floating offshore wind technologies to produce zero-carbon electricity. The development aims to help Scotland and the UK as a whole to progress towards a net-zero future.
Salamander is a pre-commercial size project, up to 200MW capacity, located off Peterhead in the East coast of Scotland. Due to its privileged location, the project is currently exploring routes to market including oil and gas decarbonization and hydrogen production. The project is in an advanced planning stage and it is aiming to secure a Contracts for Difference (the government’s main mechanism for supporting low-carbon electricity generation) in 2025.
The Salamander project is a stepping-stone project that is following the philosophy that Simply Blue Energy is using in the Celtic Sea and therefore has a strong focus on supply chain development. Salamander will provide an opportunity for the local supply chain to gear up for commercial scale opportunities in Scotland, as well as de-risking floating wind technologies for the future commercial projects. This will allow Scotland to maximise the financial benefit of its strong offshore wind resource and generate long term jobs for its local communities while contributing to the UK government’s target of 1GW of operational floating offshore wind by 2030.
Floating wind foundations are normally used in deep waters where fixed foundations are no longer economically feasible. Space for fixed foundations is scarce in many countries (including the UK) as development of fixed wind projects has been happening for the last 15 years. WindEurope estimates 80% of the wind resource in Europe is in waters beyond 60m deep. Therefore, it is clear that floating wind is going to play a very important role in the development of offshore wind pipelines in many countries including Scotland.
Scotland is a pioneer in floating offshore wind having deployed the first floating array in the world, the Hywind Scotland project. In addition to this project, Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm Phase 1 and Phase 2 have recently been deployed bringing the combined capacity of floating offshore wind in Scotland to 80MW. The recently launched ScotWind commercial leasing round is underway in Scotland by which Crown Estate Scotland will grant property rights for seabed in Scottish waters for approximately 10GW of new commercial scale offshore wind project development. It is expected that some of these projects will use floating wind foundations with most of these becoming operational post 2030 and on a scale of circa 1GW each.
Given previous projects have not yielded the expected supply chain benefits for Scotland, there is a need for pre-commercial stepping-stone projects to get ready for ScotWind. The Salamander project aims to bridge the development gap between the current operational floating wind projects and ScotWind projects.
In March 2020, Total teamed up with Simply Blue Energy in a JV named Blue Gem Wind, to develop floating wind sites in the Welsh waters of the Celtic Sea. An application was submitted at that time to the Crown Estate for the first demonstration site, the 100MW Erebus Project south of Pembroke Dock where Blue Gem Wind has recently set up a new office. This site and others that are planned to follow will be developed for deployment of Principle Power’s WindFloat® technology with the turbines being chosen during the development process.
Simply Blue Energy as part of Blue Gem Wind has been engaging with the local supply chain around the Celtic Sea to help them be ready to take part in this development. The target commissioning date is for the mid-2020s and will be subject to the availability of suitable revenue support as described in Renewable UK’s recent report Floating Wind, the UK Industry Ambition published in October 2019. Simply Blue Energy was represented on the task force that drew up the report. The opportunity has been given a lift by the launch, on 2nd March 2020, of the government’s consultation on amendments to the CFD scheme which made significant proposals on how it will support this new sector.
A report by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult focusing on supply chain opportunities produced for the Welsh Government and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership identified that floating offshore wind projects in the Celtic Sea could support 3,200 jobs in south west England and Wales and bring £682m in benefits to the local supply chain by 2030.
