Feasibility Analysis of Floating Offshore Wind in Svalbard

• Main Author: Drummond, Michael
• Other Authors: Obhrai, Charlotte
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: uis 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Svalbard; Longyearbyen; Isfjord*; Isfjorden; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3032570

Svalbard is a Norwegian island archipelago located far north in the Arctic with Longyearbyen its largest settlement. Fossil fuel in the form of diesel generators or coal power plants is still the primary energy source in all the settlements of Svalbard. In 2018, The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) commissioned a study on the future energy supply options for Svalbard. This study did not explore offshore wind, and considered onshore turbines to have lower cost, with similar environmental consequences. Recently, policy has restricted the future development of onshore wind turbines as a result of local opposition and concern over sensitive bird populations. Floating offshore wind (FOW) could be considered as an alternative and the feasibility of such a project should be investigated further. As such, the purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of FOW in Svalbard. This was done through a case study, which is limited to the installation and operational feasibility of a semi-submersible FOW concept layout of six 12MW WINDMOOR units positioned 60km offshore from the entrance at Isfjorden. Reference literature on the subject is scarce, so typical arctic offshore engineering challenges are explored to aid the analysis. Typical and extreme site conditions and challenges encountered with arctic offshore installations is of great interest to the case study. Of these challenges, sea ice was identified as a critical environmental condition for the installation and operation of offshore structures in the arctic. At the selected site however, due to the warmer and more favourable climate conditions on the west coast of Svalbard, sea ice is expected to be small and in low concentrations. The concept was then tested for the expected extreme ice conditions at the site using the Simulator for Arctic Marine Structures (SAMS) program. The results from the SAMS simulation that replicated adverse sea ice conditions on the FOW concept showed that sea ice would likely be a minor issue and not impact on the stability ...