IEA Wind TCP Task 49

About Task 49

This Task aims to accelerate the sustainable commercialization of floating wind arrays. Floating wind projects worldwide remain at the demonstration scale with only 79 MW operating at the end of 2020; however, a significant expansion to commercial-scale projects is expected to take place this decade as shown in the capacity projections below. This expanded deployment will require significant progress in understanding the most effective designs for different global regions. IEA Wind Task 49 will contribute to this technological advancement through the definition of a robust set of open access references. These will be designed to facilitate the work of multidisciplinary teams seeking to maximize the technical, social, economic, and environmental benefits of large-scale deployments.

Cumulative floating offshore wind capacity by country on announced commercial operation dates through 2025. Offshore Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition by Musial, et al (2021).

As floating wind technology expands to larger scales and a wider range of site conditions, the industry faces a set of unique challenges to scale from existing demonstration projects to commercial-scale floating arrays. These challenges are not constrained to individual turbine systems, but instead encompass multidisciplinary considerations including the mooring, anchor, and cabling design; array layout optimization; installation and operational logistics; environmental and marine spatial planning impact; and failure modes and analysis for utility-scale floating wind projects. A gathering of international experts at the Topical Experts Meeting #99 in July 2020 identified several major challenges and opportunities for the growing floating wind design community, including:

As no large-scale floating wind projects currently exist, establishing baseline design parameters and costs is important to summarize the current state of the industry and communicate this information to key stakeholders.
Using the baseline design packages and modeling framework for evaluating new designs or benchmarking new tools will enable standardization and innovation for the broader floating wind research community.
A collection of benchmark data requirements for floating wind development (including socio-ecological, environmental, economic, and marine spatial planning questions facing projects worldwide) will facilitate research into holistic project designs that address these questions in conjunction with technical project design.

Task 49 SharePoint

Visit the site here or contact one of the Operating Agents to gain access.

Goals of the Task

IEA Wind Task 49 focuses on the Integrated DEsign of floating wind Arrays (IDEA). The primary goal of the IDEA project is to develop baseline floating wind designs, tools, frameworks, and datasets that can be used by the research and industry community to explore optimal designs, novel technologies or methodologies, new project locations, or risk analyses. There are several important outcomes of achieving the goals of the Task:

As no large-scale floating wind projects currently exist, establishing baseline design parameters and costs is important to summarize the current state of the industry and communicate this information to key stakeholders.
Using the baseline design packages and modeling framework for evaluating new designs or benchmarking new tools will enable standardization and innovation for the broader floating wind research community.
A collection of benchmark data requirements for floating wind development (including socio-ecological, environmental, economic, and marine spatial planning questions facing projects worldwide) will facilitate research into holistic project designs that address these questions in conjunction with technical project design.

Work Packages

The goals of IEA Wind Task 49 will be address through 4 interrelated work packages:

Work Package 1: Definition of reference site conditions for floating wind arrays

This work package will define the metocean, geotechnical, socio-ecological, and other site-specific parameters for a range of hypothetical reference sites that are representative of the types of conditions in which the initial phase of commercial-scale floating wind may be deployed, and will identify where relevant open-access datasets are unavailable or limited.

Work Package 2: Development of reference floating wind array designs

This work package will develop and define several floating wind farm reference designs that can serve as baseline designs in future array-level floating wind R&D activities.

Work Package 3: Array-level failure risks and mitigation

This work package focuses on identifying the failure modes pertaining to floating wind turbine arrays, and the potential consequences and couplings of those modes in the context of an array.

Work Package 4: Classification of outstanding requirements for floating array deployment

This work package will identify, characterize, and publish the major research questions faced by the industry in these two key areas and will tailor the efforts of WP1, WP2, and WP3 to either address these questions directly or to provide a solid foundation upon which to investigate the impacts of key innovations or MSP requirements as part of future work.

Work Plan

IEA Wind TCP Task 49 kicks off in November, 2021 and runs for 4 years. The work plan is as follows:

2021-2022

Active work packages: WP1, WP2, and WP4

Major milestones:
o Design basis report for reference arrays

2022-2023

Active work packages: WP1, WP2, WP3, and WP4

Major milestones:
o Finalized dataset of reference site conditions (to be published in an online repository)

2023-2024

Active work packages: WP2, WP3, WP4

Major milestones:
o First reference array design
o Risk feedback provided on array design
o Definitions and functionality requirements for innovation and MSP question register

2024-2025

Active work packages: WP2, WP3, WP4

Major milestones:
o Complete all reference array designs

Services

Publications and results

Find more information about our results here

We will provide links to publications, data sets, and reference designs as they become available.

Results

Participation

Task 49 Participants

Who can participate in Task 49?

To participate in the research activities of Task 49, researchers must reside in a country that participates in the IEA Wind TCP Implementing Agreement AND has agreed by official letter to participate in Task 49. The participating member country of the IEA Wind TCP must designate a lead institution that agrees to the obligations of Task participation (pay the annual fee and agree to perform specified parts of the work plan).

Active researchers (performing part of the work plan) benefit from meetings and professional exchange during the term of the Task. In the particular case of IEA Task 49, the measurement results will, where possible, be shared with the consortium so that partners get first-hand information from unique new data. Countries participating in the Task benefit from the information developed by the Task. The value of the research performed is many times the cost of the country participation fee or the labor contributed to carrying out the work plan.

For more information, contact the Operating Agents, Matt Hall, Pauline Bozonnet, and Cian Desmond, or the IEA Wind TCP Secretariat.

Participation