Wood To Deliver Design Services For Floating Wind Farm In Scotland

Engineering and project management company Wood has announced that it has been awarded the Principal Designer and Pre-FEED scope for Salamander, the 100MW floating wind farm development located off East Coast of Scotland.

The Salamander project is a joint venture between Simply Blue Group, Orsted and Subsea 7. The official statement of Wood held that the offshore wind farm will be a major contributor to meet the UK government’s target of delivering 5 GW of operational floating offshore wind by 2030.

Wood said that the wind farm project is set to provide the Scottish supply chain with an early capacity development opportunity. The project, it added, will employ pioneering and cutting-edge floating offshore wind technologies that will enable cost reduction.

Azad Hessamodini, Executive President, Wood Consulting, said “Developments like the Salamander project will play a vital role in providing low-carbon energy for the region and in helping the UK to meet its ambitious decarbonisation targets. We are proud to be guiding the development of this innovative project and which could set the standard for future floating wind developments across the globe.”

The statement reads that Wood will undertake and manage a system level pre-FEED (front-end engineering design) to enable the planning, costing and risk-assessment of a FEED design process. Wood will also manage the interfaces with the foundation designer and provide design services for the subsea and onshore cables as well as grid and onshore electrical connection. The scope also includes wind turbine generator OEM engagement, collation of site data, ports, transport and installation analysis, and O&M strategy and certification, the press revealed.

Building It Together

Wood also informed that Salamander will be advanced through the Crown Estate Scotland’s forthcoming Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round that is to open in August this year.

Huw Bell, Salamander Project Director, said “Salamander will provide a vital stepping-stone to delivering Scotland’s future commercial scale offshore wind build-out. This project can demonstrate a pathway to reducing cost, reducing risk, and developing Scotland as a destination for innovation, in time for the upcoming wave of larger scale developments from 2030 onwards.” He also said that Salamander looks forward to working with the team at Wood to progress the wind farm to the next stage of development.

The award will further strengthen the partnership that Wood already has with Simply Blue Group, since it has been awarded a pre-FEED contract for a proposed floating offshore wind farm off the west coast of Ireland, said Wood.