10 technology developers and associations have founded “Friends of Floating Offshore wind”, a group who will promote the interests of Floating Offshore Wind in Scotland and the UK. Floating substructures for offshore wind are in different stages of development and despite showing promising commercial potential, still require support to become competitive.
There are common challenges faced by the industry that need to be overcome on the road to commercialisation. The role of Friends of Floating Offshore Wind is to identify these challenges and suggest initiatives and mechanisms that will address them to facilitate the rapid commercialisation of floating wind. At first, the members decided to direct their activities towards creation of support primarily at the governments in Scotland and Westminster. Several issues have been identified as key requirements for both demonstration and pilot projects, such as improving the consenting process, setting up a support mechanism as well as introducing regulations that allow for the preferential reservation and connection of demonstration projects to the electricity grid. The founding members are Pilot Offshore Renewables, Hexicon, RES Offshore, IDEOL, Floating Power Plant, Glosten PelaStar, Principle Power Inc., Atkins, ACS Cobra and GICON.
