As attention turns to Glasgow’s offshore wind conference, developers behind ScotWind project Ossian and INTOG development Salamander have announced some survey completion milestones.
Ossian, which is on track to be one of the largest floating offshore wind farms in the world when it is built, announced the completion of a geophysical survey along the project’s 260-mile cable export route in the North Sea.
Irish geophysical data firm Xocean deployed six uncrewed survey vessels (USVs), contended with 11 named storms and gathered crucial data in water depths ranging from the shoreline to over 320 ft during the 13-month campaign.
Ossian, a joint venture between SSE (LON: SSE), Marubeni (TSE: MARUY) and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is set to use the survey findings to inform its cable route.
“The survey has been executed in multiple phases, with up to six USVs operating in the North Sea to capture data in a safe, economic and carbon neutral way,” said Kevin Harnett, chief revenue officer of Xocean.
“Our team worked closely with the Ossian team to optimise each phase of data acquisition, leveraging the flexibility and scalability of our fleet to accelerate data collection and to provide early insights into the seabed characteristics.”
Once operational, the offshore wind farm will have a capacity of up to 3.6GW, however, it first needs to secure planning consent, route to market and a final investment decision.
The floating wind farm will be located around 52 miles (84km) off the Aberdeenshire coast and will take up a space more than four times the size of Aberdeen.
Ossian recently submitted a consent application for its offshore array to the Scottish Government. The application covered the use a maximum of 265 floating wind turbines.
The project will connect to the National Grid, via connection points at the 400 kV grid substations located at Lincolnshire Connection Node and Weston Marsh, Lincolnshire.
Ossian engineering manager Laurent Domergue said “The completion of the Xocean survey is a huge milestone in progressing towards selection of the most feasible route for our offshore export cables.
“The campaign has delivered information vital to understanding seabed characteristics, habitats, and the geology of the offshore export cable route, setting out our path for the future.”
Salamander heats up as data gathering comes to an end
The INTOG joint venture between Ørsted (CO: ORSTED), Simply Blue Group and Subsea7 (OSL: SUBC), Salamander, has concluded a campaign to gather data at the site off the coast of Aberdeen.
Salamander won a licence in the Scottish government’s Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round.
The 100 MW floating wind development fell under the ‘innovation’ category of the government initiative as it plans to test new approaches to offshore wind operations.
The survey, which ran since October 2023, used two floating SEAWATCH wind lidar buoys and a Wavescan buoy to monitor to gather data which will inform the project’s design, operations, and maintenance strategy.
The team have collated information on wave height, wind and current speed and other region-specific metrics.
© Supplied by SalamanderHugh Yendole, project director at Salamander said: “This is a key success in the delivery of our innovation project.
“As a stepping-stone development, Salamander will use pioneering floating offshore wind technologies to help Scotland and the UK progress towards a net-zero future.
“The data gathered through this survey will determine the most appropriate next steps for the development of the project.”
Salamander is set to be developed around 21 miles off the coast of the north-east town of Peterhead.
In addition to the project’s 100MW capacity, it will connect to a 100 MW onshore battery.
Previously, Yendole told Energy Voice that due to this innovative design, “the sooner we get that consent, the better.”
