Deepwater Foundations

A UK developer contracted Kent in partnership with BVG Associates (BVGA) to undertake a study to investigate the state-of-the art in deep-water wind turbine foundations, both fixed and floating. Kent worked in close collaboration with BVGA to develop conceptual substructure designs for each of the fixed (jacket), and floating (semi & TLP) foundations across a range of water depths from 50m to 100m. This included not just the foundation design, but also the approach to fabrication, installation, operation and decommissioning. Using this information, and in-house cost models, to develop LCoE estimates for each of the options and identify the most attractive foundation type in each water depth.

Sensitivity studies were subsequently undertaken to understand the impact of variation in cost of key cost centres (e.g. fabrication cost, WTG cost, Weighted Average Cost of Capital etc) on LCoE.

In addition to the LCoE modelling, a comprehensive review of the current state of the art in each technology was undertaken and key technology barriers identified. This gave the developer a clear oversight of the key risks of each development option.