Integrated designs for future floating offshore wind farm technology – Towards nature inclusive innovations

Summary

This paper shows that through a comprehensive interplay between engineering design, modelling, analysis and optimisation, fundamental nature inclusive design innovations for the floating offshore wind industry can be provided. With the increased used of the marine space for energy production, environmental impacts move into focus when developing innovations for offshore wind. However, the ambitious capacity goals potentially compromise the goal to protect and preserve bio-diversity in sea basins. Hence, the offshore wind industry is faced with the challenge to balance human needs for clean energy with nature’s and society’s demands of decreased negative environmental and social impact. Nature inclusive designs can contribute to this challenge; however, their concept is largely under-explored.