Irish research to lead international development of floating windfarms

RWE's Gwynt y Mor, the world's 2nd largest offshore wind farm located eight miles offshore in Liverpool Bay, off the coast of North Wales. Picture: Ben Birchall/PA Wire

A new SEAI-funded project has put Irish research at the forefront of international efforts to accelerate the development of large-scale floating wind energy (FLOW) farms.

The project, named IDEA-IRL: Integrated Design of FLOW Arrays - Ireland will produce a long-term FLOW development roadmap for Ireland, identifying recommendations to maximise its social, economic and environmental benefits.

This €800k project is coordinated by MaREI, University College Cork (the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation), and includes project partners Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions (GDG) and Wind Energy Ireland (WEI). 

As a rapidly growing industry, by 2050, it is predicted that FLOW will generate 264 GW. Irish offshore wind is a considerable natural resource, with targets to deploy 5 GW of fixed offshore wind by 2030 (with 2 GW of FLOW in development) and 30 GW of FLOW thereafter.

In 2020, GDG and UCC recognised the need to tackle the challenges to large-scale FLOW development and explore the potential of this industry for Ireland, and globally. 

Following a three-day meeting to discuss the topic with 103 leading international FLOW experts, GDG; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL, USA) and IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN, France) initiated a project to address the pressing research requirements for FLOW arrays under the framework of the International Energy Association (IEA) Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP). 

The IDEA project (IEA TCP Wind Task 49) began in 2022, encompassing over 100 organizations from 11 countries.

This work primarily relies on the collaboration and alignment of national and international research projects rather than direct funding. 

IDEA-IRL will support Ireland's involvement in Task 49 and facilitate more in-depth and Ireland-specific research into FLOW array opportunities.

The project aims to deliver a set of fully defined reference sites characteristic of the international global FLOW deployment pipeline including relevant technical, social, environmental and economic parameters.

It also hopes to deliver a set of fully open source and customisable FLOW array reference farm designs including key engineering tool input files, cost and environmental impact models.

IDEA-IRL also aims to produce a Failure Mode, Effects & Criticality Analysis framework for FLOW arrays including for coupled/cascading failures.