SEA-LIFT: A New Installation and Maintenance System for Offshore Wind Farms to Reduce the Cost of Floating Marine Energy

December 18, 2024

SEA-LIFT: A New Installation and Maintenance System for Offshore Wind Farms to Reduce the Cost of Floating Marine Energy

Sustainability, cost reduction, and technological development are some of the benefits offered by the SEA-LIFT project, whose main objective is to develop a revolutionary system for the installation and maintenance of offshore wind farms.

The European Green Deal outlines the EU’s long-term strategic vision to achieve a competitive, inclusive, and climate-neutral economy by 2050. In line with this plan, the EU Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy aims to increase the production capacity of this type of energy in Europe, from its current level (16 GW) to at least 60 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050. Currently, according to Wind Europe, “ports are a crucial element in the supply chain of offshore wind farms, and one of the technological and logistical challenges they face is the need for low-cost means to develop the port operations required by the floating offshore wind sector.”

In this context, the SEA-LIFT project aims to facilitate the evolution of the offshore wind market by eliminating the need for current large-tonnage, low-availability cranes and reducing maritime transport. This is achieved by enabling in-situ maintenance operations at ports, thereby optimizing wind farm availability factors.

SEA-LIFT is a research project funded under the 2023 TRANSMISSIONS call by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) and the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI). The consortium, comprising five companies and two research centers, will build on NABRAWIND‘s Skylift technology for self-erecting towers (already in use for onshore wind farms) and adapt it for offshore wind applications. The consortium includes SAITEC and NAUTILUS, leaders in Spain’s floating wind sector, as well as INGECID and TETRACE, which bring expertise in product and process development for the marine sector. IHCantabria will provide simulation and validation of the technology in its test tanks, while CENER will develop the control techniques needed for tower self-erection on floating platforms.

With all these elements, the consortium aims to develop a new installation and maintenance system that will drive the evolution of the offshore wind market by enabling the installation of high-capacity turbines (15 MW–20 MW) at greater depths, overcoming the current technical and economic barriers. SEA-LIFT will allow the assembly of key wind turbine components on both fixed and floating offshore substructures. Its versatile design will enable installation both in ports and at sea. This flexibility represents a major innovation.

Research Serving Industry

The collaboration of leading research centers in the field of marine renewable energy, such as IHCantabria and CENER, will enable the development of new strategies and methodologies to position the industry at the forefront of offshore wind technology. The IHCantabria-CENER partnership will deliver two key outcomes: first, new methodologies for simulating the dynamic behavior of floating structures in ports through coupled port-platform analysis, aiming to reduce operational times and costs. Second, a thorough experimental validation of the control system for the self-erecting wind turbine tool will be conducted.

An Industry Committed to Innovation

The SEA-LIFT project seeks to develop an innovative solution for the installation and operation of offshore wind farms. This will enhance the availability of installation resources and offer greater flexibility in planning and executing new projects. Compared to traditional systems, SEA-LIFT estimates a significant reduction in the implementation costs of such solutions, as the consortium calculates it to be 3 to 5 times more cost-effective than traditional methods. Additionally, self-erection methods reduce dependence on specialized or high-load-bearing port infrastructure, opening up the market to ports that are currently uncompetitive due to their infrastructure limitations.

For all these reasons, the SEA-LIFT project’s contribution to the offshore wind sector is expected to be highly significant, given the current technological evolution toward increasingly larger turbines and the ambitious installed power horizons for 2030–2050, in line with the strategy to meet society’s climate objectives.

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