Wood has been awarded the principal designer and pre-front end engineering and design (FEED) scope for a floating wind farm 35km off Peterhead.
Salamander, a joint venture between Simply Blue Group, Ørsted and Subsea 7, is a 100MW development which should give sufficient generation capacity for around 60,000 homes.
The project is designed to provide the Scottish supply chain with an early capacity development opportunity, enabling it to play a much greater role in subsequent large-scale floating offshore wind buildout.
Azad Hessamodini, executive president of Wood Consulting, said: “Given Scotland’s enviable renewable energy resources, the country has a tremendous opportunity to cement its position as a global leader in the fast-growing floating offshore wind market.
“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.”
Wood will undertake and manage a system level pre-FEED to enable the planning, costing and risk-assessment of a FEED design process.
As part of the scope, it will 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. This also includes wind turbine generator engagement, collation of site data, ports, transport and installation analysis.
Salamander is intended to be progressed through the innovation track of Crown Estate Scotland’s forthcoming Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round.
Opening later this month, the INTOG round will grant seabed leases through an auction process, which will be split into two pots – one for smaller scale innovation projects of less than 100 MW and one for larger projects linked to oil and gas infrastructure.
Salamander project director Huw Bell said: “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.
“There’s no other project that offers such valuable and broad learnings for Scottish industry and stakeholders over the next few years.”
This award builds on the relationship Wood already has with Simply Blue Group, having previously been awarded a pre-FEED contract for a proposed floating offshore wind farm located off the west coast of Ireland.
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