Oceanflow awarded Innovate UK Energy Catalyst grant to investigate Starfloat™ performance and economics
21/03/2017
Oceanflow together with academic partner Stellenbosch University, South Africa have been successful in their bid for an Innovate UK Energy Catalyst Round 4 grant to investigate the potential of its Starfloat floating wind turbine.
Floating foundations for offshore wind turbines will allow wind farms to be built further offshore in the deeper water that exists around the Atlantic Margins of the UK, Europe and southern Africa. For this market to be realised innovative floating foundation solutions are required to arrive at costs of energy that are competitive or can better the economics of nearshore wind farms that employ fixed foundations.
The Starfloat™ solution proposed by Oceanflow Energy involves a novel multifloat-spar structure employing an innovative cost cutting build, assembly and deployment process to allow the economic exploitation of deeper water wind farm sites.
In many parts of the world and particularly off the south west coast of Africa scarcity of fresh water is a threat to the existence of communities and an obstacle to their economic development. Using reverse osmosis fresh water generating plant powered by electricity from wind energy it is possible to displace expensive diesel driven production and to use fresh water storage as a means of load leveling when the local grid electricity demand is weak. This feasibility study is to demonstrate the viability of the platform technology for economic electricity production and fresh water generation depending upon the needs of the community.