Planned floating wind farm in Scotland could become one of world’s biggest

Image credit: Partac

A proposed floating wind farm off the east coast of Scotland could have its planned overall capacity expanded to make it among the top five largest floating offshore wind farms globally.

The Ossian project is being delivered by a partnership of Scottish renewable energy developer, SSE Renewables; Japanese conglomerate, Marubeni Corporation (Marubeni); and Danish fund management company, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

In recent months the Ossian project completed a full geophysical and benthic survey of the project area, with the data collected informing a review of the potential wind farm capacity. It found that, subject to undertaking the necessary further environmental and technical assessments, the site could be used to generate the increased capacity of up to 3.6GW.

Senior Project Manager for Ossian, David Willson, said, “We are excited that through further technical assessment of our project area, we now believe Ossian could provide an even greater renewable electricity output. If realised, this change would position the project among the top five largest floating projects in the world, demonstrating its epic scale. This is a great motivator for project partners SSE Renewables, Marubeni and CIP and the whole project team.

“Our geophysical survey collected data to a very high standard, ahead of schedule and under budget in 109 days with zero HSE incidents – an amazing achievement to be proud of.

“Our FLiDAR and Metocean measurement campaign successfully kicked-off in August which will deliver comprehensive measurements of the metocean conditions to inform the development of the Ossian site.

“We will now work with our stakeholders and regulators to secure the appropriate consent so that the full potential of the Ossian Wind Farm Project can be realised.”

Floating LiDAR (or FLiDAR: Floating Light Detection and Ranging) equipment is now acquiring data at the Ossian site having been deployed by Glasgow-based metocean specialists, PARTRAC.

The company has placed EOLOS FLS 200 FLiDAR equipment across two locations at the Ossian site with the aim of measuring wind speed and direction to help determine the best locations and positions for wind turbines.

PARTRAC has also deployed its metocean equipment consisting of three wave buoys and three subsea moorings at three locations. The installed equipment will measure the waves, current, tidal levels, turbidity, conductivity, and temperature.

Sam Athey, MD of PARTRAC, said, “Our work at the Ossian site marks the start of two years of data collection so that we can build knowledge of site characteristics and capture critical metocean data. This is an incredibly important process as it establishes both the wind resource and environmental conditions for the project. We’re very pleased and proud to be involved in this flagship project.”