A surge in demand for offshore floating wind turbines has brought major business opportunities for Kongsberg Maritime. Its technologies will help power reliable and sustainable major infrastructure projects.
The global demand for clean energy is driving the development of large-scale offshore floating wind turbines.
With many countries proposing significant investment in this technology, Kongsberg Maritime is ramping up its offering for this fast-moving market. With perhaps 50 or more turbines in future wind farms, establishing such infrastructure many miles from shore presents big challenges and opportunities for equipment and technology suppliers.
Getting the giant turbines out to the fields will be a mammoth task, and, as volume shoots up, the need for a fast and effective way to transport them from shore will become a prerequisite. With decades of experience in supplying the world’s offshore companies with advanced dynamic positioning (DP) systems, Kongsberg Maritime has developed a new technology application to enhance its popular K-Pos DP system. This enables unpowered floating structures to become DP-enabled during complex towing and positioning operations.
The new Tow Assist System was successfully trialled in the North Sea in summer 2024 and is set to be commercially available in 2025. This innovative approach to transportation could transform complex towing operations on an industrial scale.
Kongsberg Maritime has the technology to power the offshore energy industry.
“Many countries, including Norway, the UK, China and France are proposing major investment in floating offshore wind,” says Martinus Løken, Kongsberg Maritime’s Aftermarket Sales Manager. “This will see major upscaling of manufacturing for the turbines and the floating, underwater part of the structures. These are huge, and getting them out into the field, in much higher volumes than we’ve seen so far, is going to pose a major challenge. Add to this the fact that you must do this kind of operation all year round, and we’re looking at a whole new way of working.”
The complete turbines, including blades, generators, the tower and the underwater floating part, will be transported in one piece, often several hundred miles out to sea.
We have looked at the opportunities and solutions we could offer and also listened to several wind farm operators, and the towing of the completed turbines comes up regularly as a key challenge, especially as volumes will increase to levels we’ve not seen before.
Martinus Løken, Kongsberg Maritime’s Aftermarket Sales Manager
As a leader in the supply of DP systems, Kongsberg Maritime’s technology was the natural choice for deployment in this new market. DP automatically engages thrusters to hold a vessel’s position, or heading, during critical operations. The principle for the new Tow Assist System is to provide a floating structure – which is unpowered – with its own DP capability, in combination with towing vessels in one coordinated operation.
Martinus explains: “In the case of floating wind turbines, these are large, unpowered objects, but being able to manage and understand their positioning is crucial. To do this we install temporary positioning equipment onboard, which links wirelessly to the connected towing vessels, which are equipped with DP systems.
“We’re essentially providing a decentralised DP operation to a floating object. We can measure the position of the floater and the position of the connected vessels, and then we can establish a model for the precise positioning of the unit, either for station keeping or moving along a trajectory in a controlled manner.
Real-time data on position and heading, along with thruster and winch status, is transferred wirelessly to the Tow Assist master computer, located on the lead vessel. Then the connected vessels, ideally three in total, act as thrusters for the floating structure – they become one, and move as one, all controlled by proven DP technology.
To date, such manoeuvres have been carried out using radio and audio instructions from the Tow Master (on the lead vessel) to the other connected vessels. The Tow Assist System offers real-time situational awareness of all three vessels and the floating object, with crews on each vessel able to monitor each other’s position.
Martinus continues: “This approach is particularly useful when getting the floating structure into the exact position for attaching anchors, or ‘hook-up’. However, we believe it should be used for the entire journey from shore to field, as it offers optimal performance of the vessels. We’re going to see more and more of these structures being transported in different parts of the world, where there will be different levels of seaborne traffic and other obstacles to navigate, so all parts of the towing journey can be enhanced. “Vessel capability and crew competency for complex towing also vary globally, so this will provide a standard approach.”
See Dynamic Positioning in Action: Normand Drott
New animations on the Tow Assist System and other floating wind solutions in early 2025
Towing on test
In summer 2024, Kongsberg Maritime demonstrated the Tow Assist System’s capabilities during a successful trial at the Hywind Scotland offshore wind farm off the coast of Aberdeen. Hywind Scotland started operating in 2017 and is a pilot project with five floating turbines, together producing 30 MW of power.
An operation was undertaken to tow each of the turbines to the port of Sløvåg in Norway for heavy maintenance, and back again. “For the move of the fifth turbine, we installed the sensor equipment, and upgraded the K-Pos DP system on two of the three vessels,” says Martinus.
“For the trial, we didn’t need all three vessels to have it installed, but for commercialised operation, three equipped vessels will fully optimise operations.” The vessels were the Skandi Vega (lead tow vessel with K-Pos, Tow Assist master unit and the Tow Master aboard), Normand Ferking (K-Pos/Tow Assist installed) and the Normand Sigma (without K-Pos and controlled manually).
“We had positioning sensors installed on the floater that measured angle, heading and position, giving real-time positioning signals. Once the location of the field was reached, we enabled the system and the Tow Master was able to control the heading of the Skandi Vega and the Normand Ferking through the Tow Assist system, which automatically controlled the vessels’ propulsion to assist with the positioning of the unit. From a technical level it worked flawlessly.”
