SBM Offshore’s innovative wind floater design has been granted an Approval in Principle (AIP) by classification society American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). The design was developed for a site offshore France.
The AIP is also applicable to the design’s floater’s mooring system and a featured commercially available offshore wind turbine. The wind floater design, based on a TLP concept, has been designed for excellence across the full life cycle, including in-place conditions, as well as for wet tow with the turbine installed and mooring hook-up phase.
The complete design was developed in-house at SBM Offshore, in collaboration with their partner, IFP Energies Nouvelles (IFPEN), using proprietary design tools and the detailed wind turbine model, including the controller. It has been developed to a technology maturity level of a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for all relevant extreme and fatigue load cases, using detailed wind and met-ocean conditions for a site offshore France.
The AIP verifies that the floater is feasible for the intended application and, in principle, in compliance with the applicable requirements of the ABS Guide for Building and Classing Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Installations and with sound engineering practices. According to SBM Offshore the floater concept has a low mass, minimal seabed footprint and very low motions at nacelle level.
