SOC Sails into Floating Offshore Wind Sector

Siem Offshore Contractors (SOC) has entered the floating offshore wind market through an investment in Ideol.

According to SOC, this should further expand its business and open opportunities for in-house vessels in the renewable energy sector while providing construction expertise for commercialising floating offshore wind.

SOC has until this point focussed on the turnkey supply and installation of submarine composite cables on fixed-bottom offshore wind farms. The floating offshore wind market represents an opportunity to deploy an even broader selection of construction vessels from within the SIOFF fleet while expanding into a new market.

Ideol has demonstrator projects in two key markets of Europe and Japan. Ideol, was created in 2010 with the aim of developing both technically and economically viable floating foundation solutions for the offshore wind industry. Ideol is currently working on several projects including the FLOATGEN project, currently under construction, Japan’s floating offshore wind demonstrator scheduled for commissioning in 2018, the French Mediterranean’s first floating offshore wind farm as well as a pipeline of 1.5 GW of projects in the UK and 1 GW in Ireland.

SOC is bringing its construction experience and fleet of innovate vessels to Ideol and said it will help to further reduce costs en route to commercial scale deployment, while as a known and trusted construction expert will bring risk reduction for all deployments.

Regis Rougier, managing director of SOC, said: “Siem Offshore Contractors has demonstrated its leadership in the field for fixed-bottom foundation offshore wind, and we will now expand into floating offshore wind. Our ability to de-risk the construction process by making use of our fleet of innovative vessels supported by our engineering teams will contribute to develop cost effective and reliable solutions for the next generation of offshore wind farms. We look forward to working together with Ideol to realise their commercial deployment plans.”