FLOATECH, a key project for floating offshore wind turbines

13 September 2024 / , ,

After three years, the European FLOATECH project came to an end in December 2023.

FLOATECH (Optimisation of Floating Wind Turbines using Innovative Control Techniques and Fully Coupled Open Source Engineering Tools) is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme, aimed at increasing the technical maturity and economic efficiency of floating offshore wind energy (FOW). Coordinated by TU Berlin, the consortium included a total of 9 partners from 4 European countries. Over a three-year period, from 2021 to the end of 2023, the project focused on two main areas:

  • The development, implementation and validation of an engineering tool called QBlade-Ocean, which simulates floating offshore wind turbines with unprecedented aerodynamic and hydrodynamic fidelity.
  • The development of two innovative control techniques, active wave-based anticipatory control and active wake mixing, for floating wind turbines and floats, combining wave prediction and anticipation of induced platform movements. These techniques make it possible to reduce wake effects in floating wind farms, resulting in a net increase in the farm’s annual energy production.

Results that match the project’s ambition

At the end of the three-year project, the expected results have been achieved. The FLOATECH project has two main categories of results:

  • The development of QBlade-Ocean software for the design and simulation of floating turbines, to be released in July 2022. QBlade Ocean has been validated and verified by three aero-hydro-elastic models, each representing a different approach to floating offshore wind turbine technology, to ensure that the software can be used for all types of floating wind turbine.
  • A new wave-based control system has been developed to mitigate the effects of wave disturbances on the turbines. Two different wake mixing technologies have also been applied to floating wind turbines with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and analysing the potential gain of this technology at the level of a pair of turbines or a group of turbines.

Euronovia’s involvement in the FLOATECH project

As a member of the consortium, Euronovia was responsible for communicating and disseminating the project. Over a three-year period, a series of communication and dissemination actions were carried out, raising the profile of FLOATECH and the floating wind energy theme. These actions include:

A few months after the end of the project, the European Commission highlighted the professionalism and efficiency of the project management, as well as the ‘exceptional results with an immediate or potential significant impact’.

From FLOATECH to FLOATFARM: a change of scale

In January 2024, the FLOATECH project will be followed by the FLOATFARM project. With a strengthened consortium of 16 partners, the FLOATFARM project aims to take the technological maturity of offshore floating wind turbines a step further by complementing existing concepts with a significant number of new innovations and methods, to take offshore wind turbines into a new phase of industrial maturity. In addition, FLOATFARM is paying particular attention to reducing negative environmental impacts on marine life and improving the public acceptability of floating wind farms.

Drawing on the vast FLOATECH community, the FLOATFARM project has been a great success since its launch in January 2024! Find out more about the objectives, expected results and all the latest project news here: Developing the next generation of environmentally-friendly floating wind farms – Floatfarm (floatfarm-project.eu).