NextFloat 6 MW Pre-Commercial Floating Wind Platform Gets DNV Nod

Floating Wind

August 4, 2023, by Adnan Memija

X90 6 MW pre-commercial floating wind platform, which is part of the NextFloat project, has been granted the Statement of Feasibility from the classification society DNV.

NextFloat project is aimed at accelerating the rollout of the next generation of floating wind technology for a competitive, more scalable, and industrial deployment.

Launched in November last year in Paris, the project is led by partners from eight countries including Technip Energies as project coordinator, X1Wind, Naturgy, 2B Energy, Hellenic Cables, Technical University of Denmark, Hydro, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Schwartz Hautmont, Ocas, Tersan Shipyard, Ocean Ecostructures, and Cybernetix.

The project will lead to the deployment of a 6 MW floating wind prototype at the Mistral test site in the French Mediterranean Sea, to demonstrate at a relevant scale an integrated downwind floating platform design, while advancing in parallel on the industrialization and scaling-up of the integrated solution up to 20+ MW scale, in preparation of commercial floating wind farms under development in Europe.

NextFloat is anticipated to run until 2027 and it is supported by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme with public funding of EUR 16 million, plus private funding from partners and shareholders.

Construction is due in 2023 and 2024, ahead of installation in 2025.

This project builds upon previous European Projects such as the PivotBuoy which led to the installation of a part-scale prototype in the Canary Islands to validate the technology.