Recently, Fred Olsen 1848, an innovative business subsidiary of the Norwegian maritime industry giant Fred Olsen Group, has commissioned Ramboll to initiate design work to accelerate the commercial application of BRUNEL floating foundations.

BRUNEL is a brand new modular floating foundation concept, characterized by its complete composition of steel pipes. These steel pipes can be mass-produced in the factory, then transported “scattered” to the port to complete the installation of fans and foundations, and finally dragged to the machine stand.

Sofie Olsen Jebsen, CEO of Fred Olsen 1848, stated that this is a very unique design concept, where steel pipes serve as “building blocks” and are based on existing supply chains to achieve large-scale production, transportation, and installation.

Ramboll’s design work scope at BRUNEL includes the design of steel structures and mooring systems, manufacturing and development of the entire foundation, logistics, transportation, installation, and operation and maintenance.

The design work will be carried out according to DNV’s floating fan certification scheme (DNV-SE-0422), and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2024. Afterwards, BRUNEL will enter the design phase of specific projects. According to previous news, Fred Olsen 1848 plans to skip the demonstration project phase and achieve commercialization directly by 2025.

In April last year, BRUNEL obtained feasibility certification from DNV, with a technical maturity level of 4 (TRL 4), and its scaled model has also completed pool testing in Norway.

In addition, last September, Fred Olsen 1848 announced a partnership with Huisman to propose a solution for replacing the main components of BRUNEL at sea without the need to tow the wind turbine to the port. The plan is planned to be put into use before 2030.

Source: EUOffshorewind