Associated British Ports (ABP) is teaming up with Marine Power Services (MPS), a Wales-based floating wind technology developer, to accelerate the advancement of floating offshore wind technology in the Celtic Sea.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will involve working with MPS to develop solutions that support the deployment of their advanced floating platform technology PelaFlex in the Celtic Sea from ABP’s Port Talbot.
The platform is designed to support the rapid deployment of industrial-scale floating offshore wind while maximising local benefits and reducing both risk and overall project costs, said ABP.
“ABP is developing plans to invest more than £500 million to develop new and repurposed infrastructure in Port Talbot to enable the port to host manufacturing, installation, and supply chain activity for the Floating Offshore Wind (FLOW) sector. This has the potential to create thousands of new, high-quality jobs and attract billions of pounds of inward investment,” said Andy Reay , ABP Head of Offshore Wind.
“MPS’ collaboration with ABP will help open up access to major port facilities in the Celtic Sea, a key assessment criterion for the forthcoming 4.5GW Leasing Round,” said Martin Carruth , Commercial Director at MPS.
“By working together, we will enable the creation of an integrated, lower risk delivery blueprint; one that minimises space and infrastructure requirements to accelerate and reduce cost of wind farm construction using PelaFlex.”
MPS is working on pre-commercial projects in Gran Canaria and Portugal to prove and further optimise the technology.
The floating wind platform was awarded the Statement of Feasibility from DNV in September last year.
NOTE: The article has been amended.