Mooring Optimisation by Full Lifecycle Assessment

Floating wind technologies have been proven to be technically viable, with projects such as Kincardine and Hywind discussed in the literature review above. However, in order to be commercially viable, the LCOE of floating wind technologies remains too high to compete with traditional fixed-bottom wind. The LCOE of

current FOW projects is estimated at 170 £/MWh [4], compared with an estimated 45 £/MWh for fixed bottom wind [5]. Care should be taken when comparing LCOE for different technologies as it is very sensitive to discount rate and other assumptions made, FOW is consistently estimated to be around three times more

expensive than fixed bottom [6]. Fortunately, it is thought that the cost of energy from floating turbines will decline, following the pattern that was seen with fixed-bottom turbines whose cost fell as both the industry and turbine sizes expanded [7], with the DNV estimating that the LCOE of FOW will decrease by 80% by 2050

[8]. One area that has been identified for cost-reduction is the mooring system, which can account for over 10% of the costs of a floating array [9] [10]. Although mooring systems have been used previously in offshore O&G, their use in offshore wind presents novel challenges in comparison to production platforms, such as requiring

many more moored platforms per project and each platform needing to withstand a wide range of additional forces applied to it by the turbine. Standardisation of mooring design and components, the use of novel materials, anchor sharing, and the optimisation of arrays and mooring configurations have all been identified

as cost-reduction opportunities [7].