The offshore wind market is a young and rapidly growing market, whose current project pipeline for 2025/30 would equal nearly 80 nuclear plants, mostly in Europe. The next decade and beyond may average 1,000 offshore towers/year worldwide, with an overall investment volume around 15-20.000 M€/year. This growing sector faces technological challenges, as it is set to move into deeper waters further offshore while being able to reduce the costs in order to reach a competitive LCOE (levelised cost of energy). For water depths above 40m (70% of the future market) approximately 40-50% of investment corresponds to the substructure (foundation and tower). Therefore a significant cost reduction in foundation/tower would drastically improve the overall cost of offshore wind energy. This project intends to develop and demonstrate in operative environment a full scale prototype of a revolutionary substructure system for offshore wind turbines. The concept consists in a self-installing precast concrete telescopic tower which for the first time ever shall allow for crane-free offshore installation of foundations, towers and turbines, thus overcoming the constraints imposed by the dependence on offshore heavy-lift vessels. It will allow for a full in-shore preassembly of the complete system, which is key to generate a highly industrialized manufacturing process with high production rates and optimized risk control. The main benefits expected are: • 30-40% cost reduction (both CAPEX and OPEX). • Large water depth applicability range for deep offshore (>45m water depth). • Supports increased turbine size (5-8MW). • Allows for large scale fast industrial deployment of foundations. • Reduces dependence on costly and scarce installation vessels. • Improved asset integrity (durability) This solution will imply a radical step forward for cost-effective and industrially deployable deep offshore wind.

The offshore wind sector has experienced rapid growth in recent years, with new turbine technologies, increased sizes and construction locations further from the shore in deeper waters than ever before. A critical challenge for future developments is the lack of knowledge surrounding how to design foundations to support these turbines, with the safety, life-span, cost and environmental implications coming increasingly into question. To maintain Europe’s stance as a world-leader in offshore wind, Foundations foR Offshore wiNd TurbInES (FRONTIErS) DN has been designed to bring together research intensive universities and major industry stakeholders to train the next generation of graduates with the appropriate skills to tackle the emerging issues presenting as a barrier to continued development of the sector. 11 talented Doctoral Candidates (DCs) will undergo training via individual guided research projects, network-wide discipline-specific and transferrable training events, and local training at each host, over a 36-month PhD programme. DCs will receive training in innovation, communication, commercialisation and entrepreneurship as well as undertaking specific modules in business development to arm them with the requisite all-round skills to excel in academic or industry careers. A tailored dissemination strategy will govern outputs and ensure that the research reaches wider audiences, both scientific and public, through a variety of media. The secondment strategy is designed to expose DCs to both academic and industry environments to foster an appreciation for the requirements of each sector and to enable research translation. Where a DC’s research makes an appropriate contribution to its field of science, the candidate will be awarded a doctorate degree from one of four world-leading academic institutions partaking in the programme. FRONTIErS will create the next generation of high-skilled professionals, who will be in high-demand in this expanding sector.

In ELICAN, a strong team of complementary European companies with worldwide leading presence in the Wind Energy industry join forces to provide the market with a disruptive high-capacity and cost-reducing integrated substructure system for deep offshore wind energy. The technology is exceptionally fitted to meet the technical and logistical challenges of the sector as it moves into deeper locations with larger turbines, while allowing for drastic cost reduction. This project will design, build, certify and fully demonstrate in operative environment a deep water substructure prototype supporting Adwen’s 5MW offshore wind turbine, the be installed in the Southeast coast of Las Palmas (Canary Islands). It will become the first bottom-fixed offshore wind turbine in all of Southern Europe and the first one worldwide to be installed with no need of heavy-lift vessels. The revolutionary substructure consists in an integrated self-installing precast concrete telescopic tower and foundation that will allow for crane-free offshore installation of the complete substructure and wind turbine, thus overcoming the constraints imposed by the dependence on heavy-lift vessels. It will allow for a full inshore preassembly of the complete system, which is key to generate a highly industrialized low-cost manufacturing process with fast production rates and optimized risk control. The main benefits to be provided by this ground-breaking technology are: • Significant cost reduction (>35%) compared with current solutions. • Direct scalability in terms of turbine size, water depth, infrastructure and installation means. • Complete independence of heavy-lift vessels • Excellently suited for fast industrialized construction. • Robust and durable concrete substructure for reduced OPEX costs and improved asset integrity. • Suitable for most soil conditions, including rocky seabeds. • Enhanced environmental friendliness regarding both impact on sea life and carbon footprint.

TELWIND unites a strong complimentary team of renowned European companies and research institutions, which join forces to develop a revolutionary integrated floating offshore system. The concept, which has already undergone trial tank testing with overly positive results, shall enable a radical cost reduction both in terms of material usage and required means and operations. The system has been conceived in a holistic approach to the overall substructure, tower and turbine, generating ground breaking synergies between the integrated elements to specifically address the particular requirements of offshore wind, focusing in the capacity for low-cost industrialization in the inshore construction and offshore installation processes. The Telwind concept integrates a novel floating substructure and a pioneer self-erecting telescopic tower. The former provides all the performance advantages of a spar-buoy substructure while allowing for qualitatively lower material usage, the latter enables a full onshore preassembly of the overall system and a highly beneficial reduction of offshore works and auxiliary means. Together they overcome the limitations imposed by the available inshore infrastructure and offshore heavylift vessels, and thus generate a fully scalable system, perfectly fitted for the effective integration of the next generation of extremely large (10MW+) offshore wind turbines which are key to enhance the reduction of the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE). The system will also profit from the proven structural efficiency and economy of precast concrete, a material particularly well suited for low-cost industrialized production of repetitive units. Robust, reliable and virtually maintenance-free marine constructions result, reducing OPEX costs, greatly increasing durability and fatigue tolerance, and setting the ground for extended service life of the infrastructure, which could further magnify the system’s capacity for drastic reduction of the LCOE.

The overall aim of the H2Heat project is to demonstrate the full value chain for green hydrogen (H2) heating for commercial building heating. 40% of total energy consumed and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions in EU correspond to buildings, with 79% of that energy used for heating of water and air conditioning. H2HEAT, in exciting alliance with the Canary Health Service (SCS), wish to create a full demonstration of Green H2 for heating (and later energy). This will serve as the replicable model to be rolled out across the SCS hospitals enabling the SCS fulfil its ambitious ‘Health Zer0 net Emissions Strategy’ delivering deep decarbonization. H2HEAT will use offshore wind renewable energy (RE) to produce H2, from Esteyco 6MW EU funded WHEEL project. The centralised onshore H2 facility, will produce H2 initially with a 1MW electrolyser, to be used to substitute conventional fuel by the large end-user hospital CHUIMI with substantial heating requirements (>0.5MW), using a novel combination of an advanced combustion technology burner specifically designed for H2 operation H2-CHP, and a heat pump. The H2-CHP will produce heat and energy and the energy will power the heat pump for substantial heat provision to the hospital with no waste. Full end-to-end infrastructure for H2 transport and use will be planned, installed and commissioned. Comprehensive and complementary mixture of expertise and know-how provided by the consortium partners will ensure an efficient realization of the technical objectives of the project, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) of H2 fuel for consumers, and develop replicable business models for wide-scale commercial usage of H2 as a direct heating alternative across Gran Canaria. H2Heat will contribute to enabling Gran Canaria become part of the H2 valley economy through locally produced H2 from RE.