After partnering to develop offshore wind projects in the US and South Korea, Ocean Winds and Aker Offshore Wind have now formed a new partnership to apply for the development of floating wind farms in Scotland’s upcoming seabed leasing round.
The two companies will jointly submit the bid to Crown Estate Scotland by 16 July.
Dan Finch, Managing Director of Ocean Winds UK, said the companies together had the size, experience and dependability to introduce floating offshore wind technology to Scotland at commercial scale.
“Aker has a history of transitioning and delivering marine industry capabilities, technology, and digital innovation from Scotland to manage and de-risk offshore projects. In Ocean Winds we have a partner which has delivered Moray East, Scotland’s largest wind farm yet. Adding to that Aker’s offshore fabrication competencies and strong supply chain partnerships, the consortium is perfectly positioned to take this important step for Scotland in the transition to renewable energy” , said Kristian Røkke , Chairman of Aker Offshore Wind.
In the US, Aker Offshore Wind is developing the 150 MW Redwood Coast floating wind farm in California in partnership with Ocean Winds. The project is planned to be located more than 30 kilometres off the coast of Humboldt Bay, in an area the US recently decided to advance as a potential Wind Energy Area .
Aker Offshore Wind also owns 30.6 per cent of the project development company KF Wind in South Korea, in which Ocean Winds and WindPower Korea hold the remaining share. KF Wind has secured three potential wind sites off the City of Ulsan, which could potentially accommodate floating wind farms with a combined capacity of up to 1.5 GW.
Furthermore, Aker Offshore Wind holds a stake in the floating wind foundation developer Principle Power, which the Norway-based company increased in November 2020 from approximately 20 per cent to 39 per cent, after exercising an option to buy further shares in the floating wind technology company.
At this point, it is unknown whether Ocean Winds and Aker Offshore Wind’s potential projects off Scotland would use Principle Power’s technology, but both floating wind projects the two companies have partnered on earlier will feature the WindFloat floating foundation.