Industrialized offshore foundations: ‘The Tetra Concept’

By Eize de Vries

Five years after former Siemens Wind Power (now SGRE) chief technical officer Henrik Stiesdal retired, his new business Stiesdal Offshore Technologies aims to deploy a novel industrial floater later this year. We spoke with the Danish wind pioneer on the background of especially his modular industrialized Tetra floater concept and how this could decisively lower the cost of floating wind.

The shared principle behind the Tetra Concept (Tetra floaters and fixed-bottom TetraBase) is a triangular steel structure composed of pre-manufactured industrialized modules. The use of standardized components allows advanced simplified manufacturing and welding automation. The Tetra system is fully modular with all components and subassemblies factory pre-produced and pre-painted, whereby many process steps are either fully identical or largely comparable for different floating and bottom-fixed applications.