Allocation Round (AR) 6 awarded a contracts for difference (CfD) to a floating offshore wind project this month. The Green Volt plan will mark a step forwards for the sector as a whole, but also will direct some of its generation to oil and gas projects.

The move does not come in isolation. Green Volt is due to start up in 2028-29, but TotalEnergies is pressing ahead with its nearer term offshore wind plan for the Culzean platform. The company announced it was moving ahead with the single 3 MW turbine on August 29.

The facility will send power, via a 2.5 km link, to the Culzean plaform, offshore Scotland’s east coast.

The turbine will supply about 20% of the platform’s power needs. The plan is to install the turbine on a modular, light semi-submersible floater hull designed by Ocergy. Total said this would allow for fast assembly and cost optimisation.

It expects the turbine to be operational by the end of 2025.

Floating power

“This innovative pilot project aims at proving the concept of hybridisation of power generation on an offshore facility, by integrating the generation of renewable electricity from a floating wind turbine with the existing power generation from gas turbines,” stated TotalEnergies’ chief technology officer Marie-Noelle Semeria.

“It also aims at qualifying a promising floater design for the future of floating offshore wind.”

TotalEnergies’ pilot project is part of a broader push to support offshore wind powering oil and gas platforms in the UK North Sea. The project was selected in Crown Estate Scotland’s 2023 Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) leasing round. This secures seabed leases for offshore wind developments.

Twelve projects have secured exclusivity agreements. Developers in the final INTOG Sectoral Marine Plan (SMP), expected to be adopted in 2025, will enter option agreements.

Following the option period and subject to regulatory and financing conditions, they will be offered seabed leases, allowing construction to start.

Green Volt is also licensed under the INTOG programme.

Flotation Energy and Vargronn signed the first option agreement in April 2024 for their 560 MW Green Volt project.

Only a few days after Total’s decision to go ahead with its single turbine plan, the government awarded a CfD covering 400 MW of Green Volt’s planned capacity. This was agreed at a strike price of £139.93 per MWh, in 2012 prices. This is equivalent to £195.29 in 2024 prices.

Green Volt aims to be Europe’s largest commercial-scale floating wind farm, supplying power to the UK grid and nearby oil and gas platforms. Winning the CfD helps advance it towards construction.

TotalEnergies' Culzean, where it will install a floating 3 MW turbine by the end of 2025 — *TotalEnergies’ Culzean, where it will install a floating 3 MW turbine by the end of 2025*

Stepping towards electrification

“We recorded that about 5 GW of floating wind was awarded in the UK’s INTOG round in 2023, including TotalEnergies’ 3 MW pilot,” a Rystad Energy senior offshore wind analyst, Petra Manuel, told E-FWD. “INTOG was the first big step towards a more electrified North Sea.”

However, Manuel cautioned that progress for participants in the INTOG round will be slow.

“Due to the slower-than-expected development in the offshore wind sector overall – given the inflationary pressure on the market in recent years – we expect most of these TOG/decarbonisation projects to be commissioned post-2030, which are late compared to their original timeline,” Manuel said.

“Bottom-fixed projects in Europe are fighting for components supply and this will affect the floating wind sector too, notably.”

The UK is tightening the screw on oil and gas companies via the Energy Profits Levy (EPL). While the government is retaining the decarbonisation allowanc e, it is not going further.

“The introduction of the EPL and subsequent changes have had a significant negative impact on investment sentiment in the UK North Sea,” a Westwood senior commercial wind analyst, Peter Lloyd-Williams, told E-FWD. “Without future investment, the number of production hubs with a life expectancy that economically justifies electrification by wind is likely to be limited.”

Proving the point

Developers must establish proof of concept by successfully connecting floating turbines to a production platform.

“This is not without its technical challenges, even for smaller projects,” said Lloyd-Williams.

“There is also the challenge of serial production and installation for any project larger than a few turbines. Even then, any floating wind project of any significant size is also going to want to connect to the grid to sell the balance of its output, which introduces another interface risk which could possibly see the remaining lifespan of the target production hub run down.”

Manuel sees challenges ahead for floating wind players to connect with oil and gas infrastructure.

“There are still many milestones that need to be reached by the floating wind industry, including but not limited to finding the most efficient route to market and achieving a significant development in the floating foundation and dynamic cables supply chain,” Manuel said.

Modified moves

He added some oil majors had expressed concerns about electrification. This was a result of challenges in modifying existing installations.

Manuel sees oil and gas major as being the best option for driving offshore electrification. He noted these companies investment capacity and offshore experience.

However, Lloyd-Williams questioned this move. Those working across hydrocarbons and wind would not pursue offshore wind projects unless the economics were sound.

“In reality, any operator with production facilities whose lifespan extends into and beyond 2030 will be considering electrification, with offshore wind one option, albeit a challenging one,” Lloyd-Williams said.

“What matters is the production facility having a sufficiently long life ahead of it to economically justify electrification. This goes for both majors and other players.”

Total said its plan for Culzean aligned with its efforts to reduce scope 1 and 3 emissions from operated sites. It aims to cut emissions by 40% between 2015 and 2030. Its plans for floating wind are impressively ambitious. The alternative way of reducing emissions – and possibly more straightforward – is to sell assets.

As the investment outlook for the North Sea’s oil and gas darkens, the prospect of moving into electrification will darken. The UK has marked out a promising lead in this area, of using wind to reduce emissions from hydrocarbons. But if it can’t advance these projects domestically, that growth is likely to move elsewhere.

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