Offshore wind guide for engineers
Guide to Offshore Wind Structures Challenges and opportunities in designing and developing offshore wind structures both now and in the future Introduction As an industry we need to ramp up our efforts, fast. By 2030, it's estimated there will be 238 GW of power being generated by Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) around the world. This is short of the hoped-for 380 GW that the Global Offshore Wind Alliance set in 2022, and reaching 238 GW requires offshore wind capacity to almost triple in the next 4 years. What is required of the industry in the subsequent 20 years is even more ambitious. The Global Offshore Wind Alliance (GOWA) of wind energy organisations has pledged to work towards deploying 2,000 GW of offshore wind capacity to help the world reach net-zero targets by 20504. As an industry, the pressure is on, and as engineers - working in design or project execution - we need to contribute to meeting the financial, technical and logistical challenges. Fixed-bottom foundations Typically, if you're developing an offshore wind farm in 2026 and considering fixed-bottom foundations, you're choosing between a monopile, jacket or gravity base structure. Options you may have considered 10 or 15 years ago – such as tripods and twisted jackets – have for the most part been discarded as being too expensive or too technically demanding. The conditions of the seabed (geotechnical conditions) play a critical role in determining what type of foundation is feasible, and its design parameters.
About the project
This report was written for an engineering firm specialising in the design of offshore wind turbine foundations. I structured and wrote the first edition of this 10,000-word report in 2021, drawing on a series of webinars and existing technical articles the company's team had written, filling the gaps by interviewing the relevant experts.
The goal was to create a marketing asset that would be informative to engineers new to offshore wind, as well as those investing in the sector or working in it in a non-technical capacity for the first time. It aimed to show the company's expertise and encourage those interested in the sector to join it.
The first edition was downloaded over 1,000 times and referenced in a number of industry articles and papers. Working with the marketing team, I updated the guide again in 2023 and in 2026 to reflect technical advances and changes in the political landscape.
