The supply chain in the Celtic Sea for offshore floating wind is set to become an increasingly important contributor to the regional economy, creating jobs and boosting local industry. It represents a complex network of parties, activities and resources.
In this ongoing interview series, we spotlight the individuals and businesses looking to play a significant role in the development of offshore floating wind in the Celtic Sea.
In this interview, Green Economy Wales spoke with Sander van Helvoort, Director of Renewable Energy at FibreMax BV, about the supply chain process behind their product, the world's strongest cable, custom-made from synthetic fibres.
FibreMax, based in the Netherlands, have been producing the world’s strongest synthetic cables and supplying them to the offshore renewables industry since 2009. Their unique and proprietary process uses endless winding technology to continuously wind parallel strands of fibres until the right cable strength and length is reached. This creates cables with the highest breaking load, very low stretch and lowest diameter possible.
FiberMax are already working with Welsh firm Marine Powered Systems to provide integrated floating foundation and tendon solutions.
The tendon solution will be used in the anchoring and moorings of their tension leg platform (TLP), PelaFlex, to deliver the highest system stability and zero tilt. It will be the world’s first tension leg platform with FibreMax tendons, made with Twaron fiber from Teijin, the industry leader in aramid fibres.
Compared to traditional steel moorings, synthetic cable offers a much better strength to weight ratio, longer operational life and lower levels of maintenance.
Gareth Stockman, CEO at MPS commented:
“We see our partners and suppliers as very much part our team and with the addition of FibreMax, we are benefiting from the very best expertise in the industry and developing an extremely credible floating offshore wind delivery solution for the global market.”
Marine Power Systems’ floating offshore platform technology offers best in class cost compared with its peers due to the significantly reduced system mass. Moreover, its modular and flexible design enables optimum local content delivery through a decentralised logistics model. These benefits provide utility scale developers maximum flexibility between reducing cost and increasing local economic benefits, whilst in parallel accelerating farm deployment at scale.
Sander van Helvoort, Director Renewable Energy at FibreMax commented:
“We’re proud to be part of the Marine Power Systems team and delivering our unique tendons for the World’s first TLP with synthetic tendons. This brings together two unique and innovative technologies, the PelaFlex floating platform and the FibreMax tendons made with circular Twaron (Aramid) fibres made by Teijin. While working with Marine Power Systems, we’ve developed an excellent relationship which is now formalised and will allow both MPS and FibreMax to further expand, support and develop our relationship to deliver successful projects.”