Floating Wind in Wales | Substructure and Port Review

Successful early deployments of floating wind have significantly de-risked the technology. Oil & Gas majors making an entry to FLOW are confident in the technologies due to their experience of floating platforms in their existing operations.

Nevertheless, it is to be expected that initial floating wind projects will still be small. Total, for instance, have publicised their ‘stepping stones’ approach to developing floating offshore wind. Early FLOW developments in Wales could give the Welsh supply chain a ‘first mover’ advantage, demonstrating capability and capacity, and gathering experience that would enable more successful bids into the larger projects that would follow.

However, the smaller stepping stone projects are not, in themselves, big enough to justify investment by ports to construct the facilities necessary to capture these early developments.

For commercial scale projects, significant investment is needed, and external support for that investment may be required. One motivation for this report is to identify the current gaps in capability and capacity that might be barriers to capturing an early mover advantage.