World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO) has published its first White Paper Insurability of Floating Offshore Wind. The report is the result of one year’s worth of monthly discussions between participating WFO members during meetings of WFO’s Floating Offshore Wind Committee on the topic of floating offshore wind insurability.
For the acceleration of the new technology deployment, investment is a prerequisite. It is therefore necessary to gain trust of investors and financiers to enable the projects to move from a demonstrator to a commercial scale. Insurance is the security on which both Investors and Lenders rely when making their investment decision and which makes investments possible.
Major differences have been identified in the risk perception of moorings, dynamic cables and repair and maintenance concepts. To achieve sufficient and long-term insurance coverage, the Insurance Subcommittee recommends that projects follow an approach that will mitigate the losses below the property damage and business interruption deductible. This could be achieved either by (n-1) redundancy concepts or by a proactive spare parts strategy (in particular for cables and moorings) combined with sufficient defects liability provisions in the supply and Installation contracts. Turbines, including different floating platform concepts, have on the other hand not been perceived as a major obstacle to achieving an enhanced level of insurability. It was nevertheless considered of high importance to have the turbine and floating platform design integrity independently reviewed and evaluated.
