To reduce the levelized cost of offshore wind farm installations, a wind turbine substructure is needed that will provide significant project benefits over today’s conventional tubular steel XXL monopiles and cross-member jackets.
Dallas-based Offshore Wind Power Systems of Texas, LLC, believes they have found a solution in the form of the TITAN 200 is a self-installing jack-up substructure based on existing technology used in the offshore oil and gas fields.
They have published two papers showing the benefits of this system.
The TITAN 200 obviates the need for over-the-water construction. The substructure and turbine are assembled on land and towed to the site thus eliminating the unpredictable cost of paying for vessels while waiting for the weather to improve, as it can installed in wind speeds up to 20 m/s and wave crests up to 5 meters.
With the ability to deploy multiple systems concurrently in a single day, the project’s installation phase could be shortened by 50 percent or more.
In these papers, the company has shown the potential for reducing the LCOE for offshore wind of over 10 percent.
The TITAN 200 also provides the owner a unique opportunity for a second significant revenue stream. In addition to the wind turbine, the TITAN 200 can include an optional industry-standard sea recovery system that will produce more than 1 million gallons of human-consumable or agricultural-grade water per day to island and coastal communities using only half a megawatt of the wind turbine’s generated power.
The first prototype is scheduled for the deployment in fall 2015.
To read the full papers, visit the links below:
TITAN 200 Project & Cost Benefits Report
TITAN 200 Concept of Operations