DOE and Innovation Fund Denmark have announced funding to advance floating offshore wind energy systems. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and Innovation Fund Denmark intend to release a $4.2 million opportunity, building on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2021.
This funding supports research to enhance mooring technologies and methods. WETO and Innovation Fund Denmark will each contribute approximately $2 million. Teams must comprise U.S. and Danish entities collaborating on awarded projects, with substantial input from both countries. U.S. applicants must involve minority-serving institutions and other U.S. participants.
Proposals are sought for five topic areas:
- Compatibility strategies for mooring, cabling, and coexistence: Develop methods to mitigate the impact of cables and mooring lines on ocean users and the environment, while enhancing positive outcomes.
- Mass-producible, high-reliability moorings: Enable mass production of mooring components to supply floating offshore wind arrays of at least 500 MW of installed capacity.
- Novel station-keeping systems and components: Research, develop, demonstrate, or commercialise technology to prevent failures, reduce costs, enhance performance, or increase capacity of floating offshore wind energy mooring systems.
- Monitoring and inspection technologies for moorings: Develop sensor systems, remote inspection methods, maintenance strategies, and data collection and processing approaches to better assess the health and reliability of subsea components for commercial-scale floating offshore wind energy arrays.
- Open Topic: Research and development supporting mooring systems for industry-scale deployment of floating offshore wind energy. This includes identifying best practices for holistic design and optimisation of floating wind energy systems, and co-optimising turbines, platforms, moorings, and control systems.
