Special interview with Jorge Porres, Technical Director at BlueFloat Energy

OEMs is the critical key to floating offshore wind project

｜Jorge Porres, Technical Director at BlueFloat Energy

　　Offshore wind technology has evolved globally from fixed bottom to floating technology in deep water areas. The development of floating technology requires testing in terms of technical and pressure testing in the market supply chain.

　　Jorge Porres, Technical Director at BlueFloat Energy explained: "We know that there's a very relevant requirement for localization, maybe 500MW is not sufficiently challenging to test that supply chain. There are only a few turbine suppliers in Taiwan, I think it's rather difficult to have everything in one country. The other countries in Asia Pacific Region would have very similar local content requirements as Taiwan, and then the OEMs would like to comply with those requirements, so probably they'll go for a strategy of setting the blades manufacturing plan in Taiwan, and maybe the cells in Australia or the towers in Korea. It could be a combination of this."

　　Floating offshore wind turbines and bottom fixed wind turbines differ in terms of their cables. As the floating foundation will be in motion in the ocean, it requires dynamic cables to export the electricity. Jorge Porres identifies the cables as the limiting factor.

　　"Usually offshore substations have export cables of 220 or 400 kV, whereas the highest capacity achieved so far for dynamic cables is 132 kV. I think it's still going to take some time until the technology matures sufficiently to make a floating substation suitable." Porres said.