Fair wind ahead for sustainable growth

SBM Off­shore is opti­mistic that down in the sparkling seas of South­ern France it is work­ing on tech­nol­o­gy primed to accel­er­ate the glob­al ener­gy tran­si­tion. The Dutch-based group is cur­rent­ly pilot­ing new float­ing off­shore wind solu­tions in waters near Mar­seille and is set to launch fab­ri­ca­tion of a wave ener­gy pro­to­type to be deployed off­shore Mona­co in the future.

“Since Covid and the Rus­sia-Ukraine war, we have seen a stronger dri­ve from gov­ern­ments to accel­er­ate ener­gy tran­si­tion to renew­ables,” says Séver­ine Bau­dic, man­ag­ing direc­tor of SBM Offshore’s new ener­gies and ser­vices divi­sion. “This is only going to increase and one of the keys to get­ting it right is to be able to pro­vide this ener­gy at an afford­able cost. That is some­thing we and oth­er inno­v­a­tive firms are aim­ing towards.”

SBM Off­shore is most com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with serv­ing oil and gas ener­gy giants such as Exxon Mobil with its 15-strong fleet of float­ing pro­duc­tion, stor­age and offload­ing ves­sels (FPSOs). It cur­rent­ly has five FPSOs under con­struc­tion and it remains the company’s main rev­enue gen­er­a­tor.

For around a decade, the com­pa­ny has strived to utilise its off­shore tech­no­log­i­cal expe­ri­ence in the renew­able ener­gy mar­ket. The main area of focus is float­ing off­shore wind – essen­tial­ly an off­shore wind tur­bine erect­ed on a float­ing struc­ture. It is ide­al tech­nol­o­gy for areas off a coast or fur­ther out to sea where fixed off­shore wind plat­forms are not ten­able because of depth or weath­er impact. “At the time there real­ly wasn’t a float­ing wind mar­ket at all but we believed we could use our exist­ing knowl­edge of the ten­sion leg plat­form (TLP) tech­nol­o­gy as a solu­tion,” explains Bau­dic.

In 2016, SBM Off­shore was select­ed by French ener­gy group EDF to work on the pilot Provence Grand Large float­ing off­shore wind project 17km off­shore Mar­seille. SBM Off­shore designed three off­shore wind floaters – ver­ti­cal­ly moored with low motion – based on a TLP design, which will each hold 8.4MW Siemens tur­bines. It is now assem­bling the floaters which are expect­ed to be oper­a­tional in the water by the end of next year.

SBM Off­shore has also designed a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion floater called Float4Wind which is suit­able for ultra­deep water of 2,000 metres, harsh­er con­di­tions and the world’s biggest tur­bines. It can also be fab­ri­cat­ed and assem­bled more quick­ly. The design is sim­pler and ready for indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, with the aim to be cost com­pet­i­tive.

“The float­ing wind mar­ket is now real, with two com­peti­tor tech­nolo­gies already in the water,” says Bau­dic. “But we, and the oth­er up to 80 dif­fer­ent floater con­cepts in this indus­try, need to prove first that the tech­nol­o­gy works.”

SBM Off­shore is con­fi­dent­ly tar­get­ing over two gigawatt of installed or under con­struc­tion float­ing wind capac­i­ty by 2030. “And look­ing at our poten­tial clients, they are not just renew­able util­i­ty com­pa­nies; we see more oil and gas play­ers invest­ing in the ener­gy tran­si­tion. That is mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to the size of the over­all mar­ket and our busi­ness as they recog­nise our expe­ri­ence,” Bau­dic explains.

The com­pa­ny is eye­ing up oppor­tu­ni­ties in key mar­kets such as France, West Coast USA, the UK, South Korea and Japan to dri­ve its growth. “In these mar­kets, the only solu­tion is float­ing wind,” Bau­dic says. “We are already work­ing on oth­er future test and demon­stra­tion projects includ­ing in the Celtic Sea.”

It is not just a solu­tion for the envi­ron­ment but also for the econ­o­my and local jobs, with assem­bly of float­ing wind com­po­nents tak­ing place in fac­to­ries and har­bours close to project sites. How­ev­er, despite these ben­e­fits, Bau­dic believes project devel­op­ment is still too lengthy, not helped by per­mit­ting delays. The recent rise in infla­tion is also hik­ing sup­ply chain costs such as steel. It means that the search for alter­na­tive renew­able solu­tions needs to con­tin­ue, for instance wave ener­gy. “We want to har­ness the pow­er of the ocean,” she says. “There is no wave ener­gy mar­ket at the moment, but the long-term poten­tial is huge.”

Giv­en the timescale and nascent nature of both float­ing wind and wave ener­gy, SBM Off­shore is real­is­tic that ener­gy tran­si­tion will take time. With the recent hike in oil prices and gov­ern­ments real­is­ing that fos­sil fuels can play a cru­cial role in reduc­ing depen­dence on Russ­ian ener­gy, there is still life left in SBM’s tra­di­tion­al oil and gas divi­sion. But it must con­tin­ue to change.

To help the oil and gas sec­tor take green steps SBM Off­shore has an emis­sionZE­RO pro­gramme reduc­ing emis­sions from FPSOs. Bau­dic explains: “We are an ener­gy tran­si­tion com­pa­ny. We see the future of ener­gy cen­tred on decar­bon­is­ing fos­sil fuel ener­gy and devel­op­ing renew­able solu­tions.”

To find out more, vis­it sbmoffshore.com

Pro­mot­ed by SBM Off­shore