Demonstrating innovations in a novel vertical axis floating offshore wind technology lowering the lifetime cost for floating offshore wind projects
World Wind Wind (WWW), a Norwegian wind energy company, are developing a novel wind turbine technology solution for the floating offshore wind (FOW) sector: a tilting Counter-Rotating Vertical Axis Turbine (CRVT). This case study is a non-confidential summary of the work conducted by Exceedence for WWW.
Exceedence have conducted a pre-feed study aiming to compare a conceptual 24MW CRVT technology with a conceptual state-of-the-art 15MW horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT). The comparison is achieved by using their cloud-based software platform Exfin, that assimilates technical and cost information into financial digital twins. Exfin allows the user to quickly and intuitively build, analyse and optimise any number of renewable energy projects and then present them in a sophisticated analysis and comparison dashboard.
Key findings
By using Exfin, we were able to demonstrate the following:
The pre-feed study was divided into 3 main tasks:
Task 1 was to review and calibrate the information provided by WWW.
Task 2 was to gather publicly available information from a range of sources to build a Base Case for a HAWT 15MW project at Utsira Nord. Sources included Hywind Scotland, Hywind Tampen, BVGA Guide to a FOW project, and cost of steel and concrete from DNV. For better comparison, these were all inflated to January 2024.
Task 3 was to compare and contrast the Base Case HAWT 15MW project with a CRVT 24MW project, by identifying technical changes and the associated cost impacts on LCOE. A waterfall graph showing each individual cost impact item, was produced along with key cost driver analysis for both the HAWT 15MW and the CRVT 24MW projects.
Results
Based on the information found, two base case projects were built for Utsira Nord. Both used a spar floating substructure, but one was with steel and the other concrete. This meant two resulting LCOEs due to difference in material costs.
The project inputs resulted in an LCOE of 132 EUR per MWh for the steel spar HAWT 15MW project, and 120 EUR per MWh for the concrete spar. This starting point compares well with the industry expected LCOE for FOW in 2024, with a range of between 100 and 150+ EUR per MWh.
In terms of LCOE reductions, the EU SET Plan is targeting an LCOE range of between 62 and 106 EUR per MWh, with an average of 90 EUR per MWh by 2030.
We were then able to track the innovations and actionable insights for the CRVT 24MW project to provide a potential cost reduction pathway.
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