Keeping up with its committment to develop the offshore wind technologies for renewable energy, TotalEnergies has selected the Norwegian Semar Honeymooring solution, aiming to reduce floating wind costs and seabed footprint. The innovative mooring solution is expected to reduce the development costs of TotalEnergies future Offshore Wind projects in Norway and worldwide.
Floating offshore wind turbines seem to have solved the depth constraints but has raised the challenge of cost-effective, reliable mooring. TotalEnergies hopes Semar Honeymooring solution can help them meet the challenges by reducing the carbon footprint and impact on the seabed, slashing the cost of the mooring hardware and floating wind turbine structure by reducing peak loads of the mooring system and making marine operations more efficient and less costly, partly due to lower pre-tension and line weight in the mooring system, and opening the possibility of using smaller, less expensive vessels for marine operations.
Mooring design is based on the traditional technologies from mooring of oil & gas floating structures. The innovation of the Honeymooring technology is to connect floating wind turbines in a “honeycomb” network and enable new ways of applying tried and tested mooring technology in advanced and effective anchor-sharing configuration.
“Thanks to our longstanding experience in the offshore oil & gas industry, we know mooring systems very well, and as we have a large portfolio of offshore wind projects, we are proud to partner with Semar in the development of the innovative Honeymooring solution, which will contribute to lower the cost and the environmental impact of offshore wind energy,” said Olivier Terneaud, VP offshore wind at TotalEnergies.
Meanwhile, Thor Valsø-Jørgensen, CEO of Semar said, “We are proud to have TotalEnergies as one of the important partners and contributors in the development of the Honeymooring solution. The overall project is being lifted by their support and the high-quality expertise which contribute to keep all of us in the forefront of the transformation towards green energy for the future.
Once a turbine is installed on a floater, it is anchored to the mooring system to ensure the platform stays around an original target position while limiting motions.
TotalEnergies, with the support of its R&D Center in Stavanger, has for many years fostered highly efficient partnerships with industrial consortiums, research institutes and universities, and invests in an extensive portfolio of research and development activities in Norway in efforts to make wind power cheaper, more efficient, and more sustainable. In Norway, TotalEnergies has joined forces with Norsk Havvind and Iberdrola to respond to the 4.5 GW Utsira Nord and Southern North Sea II tenders and is committed to develop Norway’s offshore wind potential.
TotalEnergies is already developing a portfolio of offshore wind projects with a total capacity of more than 6 gigawatts, of which 2/3 are bottom-fixed and 1/3 are floating. These projects are located in the United Kingdom (Seagreen project, Outer Dowsing, Erebus), South Korea (Bada project), Taiwan (Yunlin project), and France (Eolmed project). The Company will participate in competitive tenders in the US, UK, France and Norway.
The company reported net profit of $16 billion (14 billion euros) in 2021 –the highest in at least 15 years –following a historic $7.2-billion loss in 2020, when oil prices crashed.
