Setting Course, an ABS Podcast

Charting the Future of Floating Offshore Wind

• American Bureau of Shipping • Season 1 • Episode 22

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As nations around the world continue to explore diversifying their energy sources, floating offshore wind platforms offer an option for countries where fixed-bottom offshore wind developments are limited.

On this episode of Setting Course, an ABS Podcast, Sam Kanner, Aikido Technologies CEO, and Rob Langford, ABS Vice President of Global Offshore Renewables, join host Brad Cox, ABS, to discuss the commercial viability, manufacturing scalability, safety considerations and global potential for the floating offshore wind industry. Sam also provides insight into Aikido’s floating platform design, which aims to streamline production and deployment processes.

If you like this episode, share it with your friends, leave a review, or send feedback to podcast@eagle.org. Learn more about how ABS is supporting the maritime industry at www.eagle.org.

Takeaways

  • Floating offshore wind is a potential alternative energy source for countries with deep coastal waters.
  • Safety is a top priority in floating offshore wind projects.
  • Collaboration across the global supply chain is necessary to support growth.
  • The industry must learn from oil and gas experiences.
  • Aikido's technology aims to simplify the assembly process.
  • The future of floating wind is promising with ongoing advancements.

Guests

Sam Kanner is the CEO and a co-founder of Aikido Technologies, a start-up focused on accelerating the deployment of floating offshore wind. In this role, he oversees all technical, commercial and business activities within the company. He and his two co-founders were Breakthrough Energy Fellows (Cohort 2022), which helped launch Aikido. Previously, he was Head of R&D at Principle Power, helping deploy some of the world's first floating wind projects.  Sam holds a doctorate and a master’s from UC Berkeley in mechanical engineering and ocean engineering and a bachelor’s from Carleton College.

Rob Langford is the Vice President of Global Offshore Renewables at ABS, bringing over 30 years of extensive experience in offshore consulting, engineering, construction, installation, operations and maintenance. With a deep understanding of offshore developments, Rob offers a comprehensive global perspective on both New Energy and Hydrocarbons. His roles at prominent companies such as Worley, SBM Offshore, Shell, Fluor, and Wood have equipped him with the expertise to successfully lead numerous offshore projects around the world. Rob’s collaborative approach in leadership offshore fixed and floating projects has consistently added value for leading energy companies around the world. He holds a degree in mechanical and production engineering from Anglia Ruskin University.

 

Brad Cox (00:08)
Welcome to Setting Course, an ABS Podcast, where we're charting the future of the maritime and offshore industries. I'm Brad Cox and I'll be your host today. We have an interesting episode lined up for you. Offshore wind developments are popping up all around the globe, but fixed foundation wind turbines aren't always feasible in deeper waters. By floating these offshore wind platforms, you open the door to developments in countries that have limited shallow waters.

To talk about what's happening in floating offshore wind, we're joined by Aikido Technologies CEO Sam Kanner. Aikido is developing a collapsible floating offshore wind platform that aims to alleviate some of the challenges associated with deploying floating platforms. Thanks for joining us, Sam.

Sam Kanner (00:47)
Thanks, Brad for having me, excited to be here.

Brad Cox (00:49)
And sitting across from me in our studio at the ABS headquarters is ABS Vice President of Global Offshore Renewables, Rob Langford. Thanks for being here, Rob. 

Rob Langford (00:58)
Thank you. I appreciate the invite and looking forward to the discussions. 

Brad Cox (01:01)
So, I wanted to just jump right in here. Floating offshore wind is relatively new, but it's growing pretty rapidly. One of the big hurdles to more growth is making the industry commercially viable. So, Sam, how is the industry tackling this challenge?

Sam Kanner (01:18)
Great question. I would say that there — I think we're taking a similar course from the fixed-bottom industry. And that is at first the industry requires significant, I would say, government support to bring these technologies down the cost curve. And I really think that the UK was one of the leaders in this space in the fixed bottom offshore wind industry, particularly, in the way that they ran what they call their contracts for different scheme, providing a significant amount of government support in the form of subsidies or other elevated power purchase agreements — how we talk about these types of things here in the US — at first. Then over time, support fades away until the electricity is really cost competitive with other conventional or other renewable forms of electricity. 

So, you're seeing that happen as well in the floating wind industry, particularly this initial Green Volt project, right, is one in Scotland that just secured a contract for difference at a significantly high power purchase agreement price that's, you know, for 400 megawatts. One of the first floating wind projects in the world to be of that size. And so, this is exactly what we need to really get the industry going on a commercial level, right? Of course, there's been many pre-commercial and smaller projects that are in the water now operating, but to really get the hundreds of megawatts into the gigawatts of floating wind in the water, this is what we need, at first. And of course, those subsidies should fade away as the industry and the supply chain all begins scaling up.

Brad Cox (02:57)
And Rob, what's been kind of your perspective on making this industry commercially viable?

Rob Langford (03:02)
Yeah, I mean, obviously we've seen quite a few demonstration projects going in water now, which is fantastic to see. And, you know, I think we need to see more of that to really prove the different technologies. I mean, of course, from our side, we're looking at lots of different technologies. But I think it's important to think about the standardization. Obviously, we're using a lot of digital twins now, I think the importance of use of AI even to make these streamlined designs more efficient, less weight in the water potentially. And then looking at some of the technologies that are trying to improve the installation rates as well to streamline that. But I think as far as the manufacturing, how potentially the car industry went, we need assembly lines, automation, to make it more streamlined to reduce that cost as well. In general, I agree totally with Sam, it's about trying to find the right price point to make it feasible. And I think as these projects get larger and larger, and there's more availability of the floating wind across the world, with higher wind rates and things like this, so I think that will help push down the levelized cost of energy and make these projects more financially feasible.

Brad Cox (04:13)
So I'm glad you mentioned the manufacturing aspect and being able to scale that up and get these floating platforms out there. So obviously, Aikido is one of many developers working toward that commercial success and, in particular, being able to produce these at a relatively quick rate. So, are these solutions scalable to the point of being able to support those global ambitions? Sam, you want to take that one first?

Sam Kanner (04:38)
Yeah, absolutely. I love Rob's analogy of the assembly line, from old, good old Henry Ford back in the day, because I do think that is one of the main technical challenges really facing the industry, Brad, as you asked. And so, at Aikido, that's really the sort of basis of the technology that we are working on is how can we be informed and be inspired by the automotive industry or even by IKEA and the furniture industry around these flat pack techniques where you can get a lot of goods going in a sort of small amount of space. And so, all of those ideas were kicking around our head as we started designing our technology. 

Me and one of my co-founders had the huge benefit of being involved with Principle Power for quite some time, seeing some of those first floating wind projects ever deployed in the world, seeing all the immense opportunities that were going to be coming in the floating wind industry and all of the challenges really from essentially borrowing these oil and gas technologies and making them suitable for floating wind. I think that was great at first. It really proved that floating wind actually works.

It was robust, but in oil and gas, there was never any pressure on the, or sort of design driver around the serial production or the fast assembly for 50 or a hundred of the exact same units, basically, for a certain farm. And so, that's why I find floating wind so interesting because it's taking the best principles from various different disciplines, whether it's offshore oil and gas, where ABS has such a long history of being involved in, or whether it's furniture making, or whether it's car making, and using an assembly line technique. So, at Aikido, we're proud to have proven our sort of technology in a recent pilot scale demonstration that we did. That was built in Louisiana and tested in Mississippi and being able to assemble our floater in 40 working hours, which we think is a real new sort of benchmark for the industry and how these large steel structures come together. Now that pilot was only a quarter scale platform, but still, when we go to the full scale 15 megawatt or beyond unit, it's the same number of steps that's required to do the final assembly of the floater. Although, of course, these structures are now much, much larger. So, from the challenges around fabrication, installation, at least this is Aikido's thesis on a solution that could potentially be scalable globally.

Brad Cox (07:24)
So, Rob, how are you seeing this sort of sector being able to scale and meet those ambitions? 

Rob Langford (07:30)
Yeah, I mean, I like how Sam talks about the traditional energy side. I think we've got to learn from that. There's quite a few similarities that we can leverage from oil and gas. And it's really about looking at what's already in the ocean and what we've been engaged with and what lessons learned that we can draw from that. And there are a lot. 

Again, we were lucky enough as ABS to be part of the Principle Power projects that are in the ocean currently. We've learned quite a few things from those projects and we've sat down with all the stakeholders to figure out what are some of those key things that we need to think about in the future, whether that's with insurance companies or financiers or stakeholders in general. So I think it comes down to, again, maybe there's things we can do. These are very complex structures. So for ABS, we look at how do we help make this safer, more sustainable, and we can do things like completing the integrated load analysis with coupled analysis, using some really clever tools to make sure that we've got the design right, making sure that we're meeting the codes and the requirements. 

And then that can fall back into how do we simplify the construction? How do we simplify the design? And we can look at the life cycle of the facility. So, if we're designing for 25, 30 years, we can now model to really look at what's going to happen to these structures and how they move together, looking at the fatigue over the life cycle of these assets. And then truly defining what that needs to look like. And that will help the assembly process and the constructability. And then, you know, like some of these technologies out there, we can figure out how do we install them safer, quicker. And that's where we're going. And I think that's where we can, again, draw from the traditional energy side of the business and make sure we're leveraging those many, many years of projects in the ocean.

Brad Cox (09:24)
You used my favorite buzzword. You said safer. Safety is always front of mind for us at ABS. So, Rob, what does safety look like for floating offshore wind? What are the major concerns? Is it the turbines themselves, the platforms, the installation steps, the construction — where are those concerns?

Rob Langford (09:44)
Yeah, I mean, I've probably kind of touched on this a little bit already around the standardization and using technology that's kind of proven. And that doesn't need to be up to a technically readiness level of nine. It can be, you know, we're doing tank tests, we're doing digital twins, but really making sure that we're doing our due diligence on those designs. Of course, at ABS, we have our own rules and guides and requirements. So, we already kind of set the path of what it needs to look like to make it safe and sustainable. Using our guides and when we do the classification or the certification of these assets, we're already kind of defining what that needs to look like and making sure that we have a clear path to giving that third party verification and approval to reduce the risk for the project. We're really a risk management company, an assurance company, to make sure these things are designed, constructed and installed safely. And then obviously during the operational phase, we can make sure we go out there to make sure things are inspected correctly. The surveyors are out there. They know these assets already from the design phase. So I think that's really how we can control the safety aspect of this. And again, accidents happen. It's happened in the traditional energy. With having 100 assets out there or 60 assets, they're multiple of what we've seen compared to oil and gas. And I think that's the biggest difference. It's not just one huge structure, it's multiple. So that we have to consider that when we're taking the design and installation into consideration.

Sam Kanner (11:19)
Yeah, I think Rob's definitely right on the safety aspect, especially right when I think another place where this deviates from oil and gas is the lack of, I'd say, manned platforms during operation. And so, I think you need to have the right safety in place or the very strict safety in place when humans and people's lives are on the line, whether all the way back from fabrication in the yard through marine operations and through O&M, and personnel transfer. So, you need to have the highest standards of safety for those different operations. And I think where it deviates, right, from traditional oil and gas is, of course, if one of these sinks, that is a huge, huge problem. But in the end, if the platform is unmanned, there's no human risk involved and there's very, I would say small environmental risk involved compared to traditional oil and gas where, of course, there's going to be some sort of lubricants and fluids. But in general, the severity of the risk of a cap size platform is much smaller compared to oil and gas. 

So, you need to have the safety standards meeting what the phase of the project is, at any given time, whether it's in fabrication or deployment or operation. And so, I think that's interesting, an interesting conversation we've had with ABS previously and a conversation that I think continues to evolve. 

Bringing back my favorite furniture maker, I was just listening to a podcast about IKEA. And one thing that really stuck with me, right, I think from the very beginning, from their founding, they made it a point that the quality was always directly related to whatever the function that this piece of furniture had. It wasn't just, we weren't just doing the highest quality, you know, for everything that we're doing with the lowest quality for everything. It was the right amount of quality. I think that can maybe be applied to the safety level of the scrutiny for these floating offshore wind projects. It needs to be the right level of safety and scrutiny given the certain level of consequences that can occur at each different phase of the project.

Brad Cox (13:32)
So, looking at the bigger picture. What is the potential for this technology globally? Obviously, I mentioned earlier the water depths are certainly an aspect. You've got to look at regulations, and winds can vary by region. So where is the big potential for these types of platforms? Sam, you want to take lead on that?

Sam Kanner (13:51)
Sure. We look to the International Energy Agency and other groups like that, that project something like 2000 gigawatts of offshore wind is needed for a net-zero society worldwide. Obviously, the bulk of that's going to be fixed-bottom, but for many countries in many regions, many states like my home state now of California, and even my birth state of Massachusetts, are going to need floating offshore wind in order to meet their goals around having a decarbonized grid. So, besides the U.S., I think the key first moving floating wind markets, I already mentioned, is Scotland and the UK. Unlike other places that I'll mention, have really formed this really broad coalition of support amongst all sorts of stakeholders. And other countries have struggled with some of the other opposition, whether it's Japan, another really, I'd say, first moving country that struggled with the fishing industry blocking some of these projects. Other early markets are other ones in Europe, like in Portugal and France and Norway. There's just some other, I would say challenges that have slowed down the progress or the deployment of floating wind.
 
And so, it's great, I was just in Scotland a couple of months ago and it was really that remarkable just to see the really wide and broad coalition of support for developing a floating wind industry of course in Scotland where the Scottish people can really, as much as possible reap the benefits of these projects on their shores. And so, yeah, I mentioned some other markets in APAC that we are targeting as well. Some of these other first moving floating wind projects. So, it's really a global industry. The supply chain is really global. The supply chain, the market is happening all around the world. There's really a bright future for the industry. Having already been in it for 10 or 15 years, I know that these projects can be delayed and there's ups and downs, but for the most part, it's been really a continued march towards progress and deployment. And I think that's just only getting more and more critical as our energy needs grow. And of course, as the climate crisis continues to get worse and worse and so the future for the industry around the world is generally really bright.

Rob Langford (16:14)
Yeah, I think it really is all about collaboration, you know, and it is a global supply chain. We have to really push this on that front. And you see the countries where they do have these collaborations to make it happen. I mean, this is going to be a massive amount of steel, the amount of mooring chain or mooring lines that depends on, you know, where this is all going to be fabricated.

We're not going to be able to do this out of one city or one county or one country. It's going to be a global effort to make this happen. So, I think that's going to be key to really push this forward. And so, collaboration, as we talk about a lot, but it's going to be fundamental for this industry to move forward. And then again, drawing from where we've already seen things happen in the UK and other areas that have been doing this for a long time. So, there are obviously nuances between different regions, but I think again, we can draw a lot from what this potential is. And like Sam said, there's 2000 gigawatts potential out there that can — we need this, we need energy diversity. You know, we talk about energy crisis all the time and that the additional energy we need for the population or for AI or for data centers or for EVs, it's all going to be needed. So I think it's critical to kind of help push that forward. 

Brad Cox (17:37)
Right and that actually plays into the next question pretty well. Obviously with the broader energy transition going on, Sam, you mentioned it, Rob, you mentioned it. Renewables aren't just for general energy use. At ABS, we talk a lot about the alternative fuels for shipping. Also the renewables for green fuel production. So, can the industry scale to meet both of those needs?

Sam Kanner (17:58)
Absolutely. I mean, I think the industry is well poised to scale. I think we can leverage a lot of the same existing fabrication facilities and a lot of the same vessel infrastructure, port infrastructure that exists today in the maritime and the offshore industries. I think, again, here's another sort of spiel for Aikido, but that's what Aikido is trying to do with our technology. But I think the industry writ large is poised to scale. I think the green fuel opportunity is a great one. Rob has mentioned AI, electrification of homes, electrification of mobility. All of this is just going to lead to a lot of load growth worldwide on our grids. And it's just really challenging to meet that. Any form of electricity takes a long time to get installed. These major infrastructure projects generally have long development timelines. I think offshore wind certainly has to be part of the puzzle for a lot of communities and regions around the world. And so, I think the industry is ready to scale. 

I think the green fuel opportunity is a great one. Really following that closely and seeing some of these first plants up and running and seeing how they could be co-located with offshore wind production or there's many different ways you could do this. You could have an eSAF plant offshore. You could have it onshore, connected. You could sign a power purchase agreement with such a facility. And so, I think that's a really exciting space that for sure offshore wind and floating offshore wind can help enable.

Rob Langford (19:34)
Yeah, and I think on, you know, going back to the vessel side of things, we're already trying to look at how do we multi use these vessels. There's definitely some areas, not all areas where we can share these vessels across the traditional energy and the renewable energy business. You know, we're already looking at dual fuel vessels that's really coming into play. I think the more concern is not having the availability and enough vessels to support the ambitions. That's going to be a gap that I think the industry realizes. And there's lots of discussions about how to bridge that gap. And it is around sharing vessels. And as these turbines get larger and larger, you know, do we want to try and stop the growth? Do we want to keep the growth? It's, it's a difficult question, right? Because reducing the levelized cost of energy is connected to the turbine technology, but we do have to think about the life cycle and how we're going to appropriately make this happen with the right infrastructure, whether that's construction, assembly or installation of these vessels. But yeah, I think, again, to scale this, we can use offshore wind for electrification of existing assets. There's a lot of power to X conversations going on. So there's huge potential not just to focus on powering homes and such, but much broader opportunities that can scale this business.

Brad Cox (21:03)
So Sam, obviously we have been talking about Aikido's technology a little bit just sprinkled in throughout. You mentioned that you guys just did the scale test pretty recently. So, how big of a milestone was that test? And were there any big lessons you guys learned from it that you're being able to take forward into the future?

Sam Kanner (21:20)
Yeah, the milestone was huge. The entire company really depended on the successful demonstration of our technology. And I think really, my hat goes off to the team and all of our partners involved for the success of the demonstration. I know we worked really hard on that whole project for just about a year. And we had some great support from Breakthrough Energy foundation, which is Bill Gates' climate foundation. We're part of the fellowship program that provided the capital and the resources for that project. And they were great in helping us as we sort of navigated through the project. As you can imagine, we hit a lot of roadblocks and challenges. They really worked with us to make the project a success. 

We did demonstrate a quarter-scale version of our platform technology. I mentioned that we really proved its assembly line, I would say, technique of the platform, being able to assemble the platform something like 10 times faster than conventional sort of fully-welded semi-submersible platform technology. We were able to transport it on a much smaller barge using what we call this flat pack configuration, which saves space. And then finally, we were able to perform this upending procedure, which basically brings our platform from this compact flat pack configuration to the much more standard upright sort of wider footprint operational configuration. ABS was there to witness the upending tests. They reviewed our test procedure documents and — I need to bring up the line. I'll bring up the line that was written in the document if you give me a sec. But we're really proud of how the demonstration went and the fact that this upending procedure was robust and reputable. We brought about 30 people there to the test site in Mississippi, some partners and potential customers to witness these tests as well and to really showcase how we're able to do it under pressure live when people are all there watching it happen. And we were able to do it in less than two hours. And again, this whole process is just pumping water in and out of our platform and the different ballast tanks there.

Rob Langford (23:33)
Yeah, no, we were, we were very happy to be part of that witness. We're here to just help make the industry kind of move forward in any which way we can. Again, going back, we're all about safety, protection of the environment and assets. So, being able to be part of this is, it's exciting. I mean, this is really, this is new stuff that's happening and we love being part of it.

Sam Kanner (23:56)
Thanks, Rob. Yeah, so here's what their surveyor wrote that we're very proud of. It said that, “the wet test demonstration of the upending process of the Aikido One floating platform was completed in accordance with the test procedures with no variances or deviations from the procedure noted.” And so, again, all of the credit goes to the team there. My co-founder Bingbin Yu, who's our chief engineer, we’ve worked together for 10 years now, just about, and she was the conductor, she was the maestro of this upending operation. It really all went flawlessly on the demo day that we call it. So, really, really proud of her and the rest of the team for that milestone.

Brad Cox (24:42)
Okay, great. So, as we're kind of wrapping up here, I wanted to offer each of you an opportunity to leave any closing thoughts with our listeners. Sam, you want to go ahead and go first on that one?

Sam Kanner (24:51)
Sure. So, in closing, I guess I would say that the floating wind industry has a very bright future, has a tremendous amount of opportunity ahead of it in the next five to 25, 30 years. I think that we will — we need power today. We will continue to need power for all the different activities that we want to do. One of the guys at Breakthrough Energy, Eric Toone, did a great talk at the Breakthrough Energy Summit this past summer titled, Energy is Prosperity. So, energy is so core to everything that we do as humans and we often forget how much energy we use and how we use it and where we use it and how it gets exactly to our plugs or to our cars or all of the energy that's embedded in so many of the products that we use today. And so, I think offshore wind is really poised to play a huge role in this energy transition and this energy growth that we'll be seeing in the coming years and decades. I think there are a lot of challenges facing the industry that we mentioned. I think technology is obviously a huge part of the solution to that. At Aikido, we think we can really offer offshore wind developers a solution to challenges around constructability and manufacturing, challenges around accelerating project timelines, around diversifying supply chains, making sure that you have multiple options in terms of ports and fabricators and assembly yards and all of that. We think our technology can offer a lot of different options for the offshore wind developers. 

But of course, there's many other challenges facing the industry that cannot really be solved by technology. And I think that's a lot of where ABS comes in in terms of being able to de-risk certain aspects of the project, whether it's the technology or it's not. The success of this industry can often be in the hands of insurers, right, that are either willing to insure such projects and give developers, you know, the peace of mind that they can go ahead with their project or not. And so, it's really going to take a village, I'd say, to get these projects in the water and to get the electricity delivered to wherever it needs to go.

But I'm confident we'll get there.

Brad Cox (27:14)
So, Rob, any closing thoughts from you?

Rob Langford (27:17)
Yeah, I mean, I echo kind of what Sam has said. I think it's really around leveraging the global supply chain. I think it's, we do need more collaboration. I do think we need to see more effort, you know, to make this bankable. And that's through various means. It's through technology, it's through digital twins, it's through this life cycle modeling, it's through even to providing the right policy to make this happen. And, you know, we're getting close to being very financially feasible against other markets, but it's got to continue to push. 

So, we've still got a way to go. But there are, like we say, there's projects in the water and we're very happy to be part of that. I think again, just going back to the lessons learned and trying to share what we can. Of course we can't divulge certain things that we've been engaged in with different technology holders and that, but wherever we can, I think as an industry, we have to share the knowledge and share what we've learned to make it more safe, to make it more sustainable and to make it something that really can continue to grow as we need, as we see the energy evolution continue to push across the globe.

Brad Cox (28:28)
Great, guys. Well, thanks again, Sam, Aikido, Rob, for joining us for this episode. I'm sure we'll all be keeping an eye on how things develop in the offshore wind sector over the next few years, decades. Thanks guys. Thanks for joining us.

Rob Langford (28:42)
Okay, thank you

Sam Kanner (28:43)
Thanks, Brad. Thanks, Rob. Appreciate it.

Brad Cox (28:45)
And for everybody listening, thank you for joining us for another episode of Setting Course. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. To learn more about what's happening in offshore wind, visit us at www.eagle.org/offshorewind. Thank you for listening.