Early-stage floating wind farm developer Simply Blue Energy has hired engineering firm Wood for pre-FEED work related to its proposed Western Star floating offshore wind farm, to be located off the west coast of Ireland.
Simply Blue Energy plans to develop the Western Star project off the west coast of Clare. The project will consist of a floating wind farm situated at least 35km offshore, co-developed with a wave energy conversion array, using CorPower's wave energy converters approximately 4km from the coast.
Commenting on the pre-FEED award, Andy Hemingway, President of Energy, Innovation & Optimisation at Wood, said: "As an emerging technology, floating wind farms could supercharge the world’s renewable energy capacity and will be an important part of the global energy transition.
"Investing in this technology of the future will help Ireland reach its targets on greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change.”
Wood’s team will examine several floating platform designs and seek to identify a design that offers the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE).