Hitachi ABB Power Grids, BW Ideol collaborates on offshore wind power

Hitachi ABB Power Grids said on Wednesday it teamed up with BW Ideol, a pioneer in floating offshore wind, through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to accelerate delivering a market-ready floating substation offering and solution. 

“We are accelerating the delivery of a market-ready floating substation offering and solution via this unique collaboration,” says Paul de la Guérivière, Chief Executive Officer of BW Ideol.

 “It brings together two market and technology leaders to create a standardized and scalable solution for all floating offshore wind power requirements. Supported by the solid offshore experience of our strategic investor BW Offshore, the collaboration will be able to deliver fully integrated technical and financial solutions,” added de la Guérivière.  

The floating offshore wind is possibly the “next big frontier” in offshore wind power, said the company in the statement.

“Installed capacity of floating offshore wind installations is forecast to grow from a modest 66 MW in 2019 to at least 6.2 GW in 2030, as more and more countries in Europe, Asia and North America seek to harness the rich potential of deep-water wind resources,” said the company in a statement,

According to the company this is a game changing innovation, that requires commercial-scale floating offshore wind farms comprising high-capacity wind turbines and standardized, scalable floating substations that make the development and operation of the installations viable and profitable.

The collaboration between the two companies, is a first of its kind for floating substations globally, in which they said it will accelerate the process.

Hitachi ABB Power Grids said it will provide modular, scalable, compact substation packages for installation on BW Ideol’s shallow-draft floating platforms.